When the weather was not rainy, Prabhupada would catch the bus to Grand Central Station and visit the Central Library on 42^nd Street.  His Srimad-Bhagavatams were there – some of the same volumes he had sold to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi – and he took pleasure in seeing them listed in the card catalogue and learning that they were being regularly checked out and read.  He would sometimes walk through U.N. Plaza or walk up to the New India House on Sixty-fourth Street, where he had met Mr. Malhotra, a Consulate officer.  It was through Mr. Malhotra that he had contacted the Tagore Society and had secured an invitation to lecture before one of their meetings.

Riding the bus down Fifth Avenue, he would look out at the buildings and imagine that some day they could be used in Krishna Consciousness.  He would take a special interest in certain buildings:  One on Twenty-third Street and one with a dome on Fourteenth Street attracted his attention. He would think of how the materialists had constructed such elaborate buildings and yet had made no provisions for spiritual life.  Despite all their great achievements of technology, the people felt empty and useless.  They had these great buildings, but the children were going to LSD.