Moving Into His New Apartment

Overlooking the courtyard from the rear building of 26 Second Avenue was Prabhupada’s second floor apartment, where he would now live, work, and worship.  With help from his Bowery friends, he had cleaned and settled into his new home.  In the back room – his office – he had placed against one wall a thin cushion with an elephant-print cover and, in front of the cushion, his unpainted metal suitcase served as a desk.  He had set his typewriter on the desk with his papers and books on either side.  This became his work area.  His manuscripts bundled in saffron cloth, his stock of Srimad-Bhagavatams, and his few personal effects he kept in the closet opposite his desk.  On the wall above his sitting place he hung an Indian calendar print of Lord Krishna.  (Krishna, as a youth, was playing on His flute with a cow close behind Him.  Lord Krishna was standing on the planet Earth, which curved like the top of a small hill beneath His feet.)  There were two windows on the east wall and the dappled morning sunlight filtering in through the fire escape fell across the floor.

The next room was bare except for a fancy coffee table, which became Prabhupada’s altar.  Here he placed a framed picture of Lord Caitanya and His associates.  On the wall he hung an Indian calendar print of four-armed Lord Visnu and Ananta Sesa, the celestial snake.  And, as in the Bowery loft, he put up a clothesline.

Both rooms were freshly painted and the floors were clean hardwood parquet.  The bathroom was clean and serviceable, as was the narrow furnished kitchen.  Prabhupada would sometimes stand by the kitchen window gazing beyond the courtyard wall.  He had moved here without any prospects of paying the next month’s rent.