Ātreya Ṛṣi: Śrīla Prabhupāda, with your permission I would like to try to get that first building in New York in which you were, you started Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Ācchā?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: On Second Avenue.
Prabhupāda: Twenty-six?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, Prabhupāda said that we could do that.
Prabhupāda: How you can get it?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: I'm going to New York in a week, and I can try to either purchase it...
Ādi-keśava: It's open.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's still available. We checked.
Ādi-keśava: The building's available now.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Should we not acquire it, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: If you can maintain it, then it is all right. That, you mean to say, that storefront or the whole building?
Gargamuni: The rear apartment or the storefront?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: The storefront as well as the building, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Both storefront and the building.
Prabhupāda: Oh. I, I know that that building was several times changed hands.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes. I can find out who it belongs to.
Prabhupāda: But the difficulty will be how to maintain the tenants. To purchase the house is not difficult.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Vacate them? To vacate them.
Prabhupāda: Vacate? What you will do?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What you will do with that building?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: We will have devotees stay, and it's a regular... It's a holy place.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not a... If you're going to get that building, then you rent it to people, not to devotees. There's no need for devotees to rent it.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Well, the upstairs we can rent to people, and the place where Prabhupāda lived could be a pilgrimage.
Prabhupāda: As soon as you rent, it become botheration.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It means you have to collect the rent.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No, your apartment can be a place of pilgrimage.
Indian man: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Ha. As soon as you rent out, then botheration.
Ādi-keśava: That... Śrīla Prabhupāda, that area has become a very, very bad neighborhood.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very bad.
Ādi-keśava: Very, very bad. There's nothing but dacoits and drug addicts.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it was when I was there. (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's what we were. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: I did not know. I occupied. Otherwise nobody was taking.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: We can make a library.
Prabhupāda: And library means these negroes will go to read? They'll go for drinking.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In that area nobody will come to read.
Ādi-keśava: Any decent person would be afraid to come there.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: But...
Ādi-keśava: Only Śrīla Prabhupāda would go there 'cause he's only a courageous man.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Except for that fact that for our devotees to pilgrimage there...
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Other than that, you won't get outsiders to come in, though.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes. But it's a great... It's an important spot.
Prabhupāda: That is dangerous portion of New York City. Just after my house they were regularly drinking and... Negroes. I didn't care. Never they did any harm to me. Bowery Street. And still, I was there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We thought about this.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We had thought about this previously. The difficulty, we felt, was just that no one will... Unless it was used as a temple now, simply to keep it as some room for a few people to see once every month or two when they pass through New York, that's not living. It should be alive.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If there's no life in it, then what's the use? That place is not especially a good place for a temple anymore.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: But fifty years...
Prabhupāda: No, so many houses, they are lying vacant. Nobody goes there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But what to do with it? Prabhupāda's saying... You're going to have someone just sit there?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: For ten, twenty years we may keep it, and in future we may... It may be a great place of pilgrimage for the whole world.
Prabhupāda: That future hope (laughs) you cannot invest money in, waste. That's not good.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Jaya.
Prabhupāda: Do something positive. (pause) If you have got preacher, then never mind what is the quarter. Have kīrtana and distribute prasādam.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have... We can do that.
Prabhupāda: Then you can do anything.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We have men we can put there. Right, Ādi-keśava?
Prabhupāda: Simply the drunken negroes, call them, "Take prasādam and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We can put Bhaktijana there 'cause he's always very fond of preaching. You know, Bhaktijana. He's always wanted to go to Harlem. So...
Prabhupāda: Yes, then we can deliver them. They are, after all, simple. These negroes, they are, after all, simple. We have to claim them. You have got now experience in Detroit. They are very good-behaving negroes. They come to our temple. Nobody could drive there. Therefore we could acquire that house so cheap.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This one on 26 Second Avenue must also be very cheap.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Our Ambarīṣa, he was very much eager. "Oh, don't mind. Take it. We shall arrange."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Cash.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Fifty years ago the cost was six million dollars, and we have purchased, only 300,000.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And the condition is not deteriorated.
Prabhupāda: Oh, it is very first class, palatial building. You have seen?
Gargamuni: No, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I've seen photos.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Deva-sādana, you gave the name.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You gave the name Deva-sādana.
Prabhupāda: Very, very nice. Better than our France palace.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's 1400 ounces gold in the ceilings.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: Even in the bathroom...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: There's gold on the ceiling.
Prabhupāda: All very aristocratic, very aristocratic. What is aristocracy, that is displayed there.