Harvey Offers Prabhupada His Studio on the Bowery 

Prabhupada had lost his spirit for living in Room 307.  What would prevent the janitor from stealing again?  Harvey Cohen and Bill Epstein had invited him to relocate downtown and had assured him of a more interested following among the young people there.  It had been an attractive proposal, and he began to reconsider it.  Then Harvey offered Prabhupada his studio on the Bowery.

Harvey had been working as a commercial artist for a Madison Avenue advertising firm when a recently acquired inheritance spurred him to move into a loft on the Bowery to pursue his own career as a painter.  But he was becoming disillusioned with New York.  A group of acquaintances addicted to heroin had been coming around taking advantage of his generosity, and his loft had recently been burglarized.  He decided to leave the City and go to California, but before leaving he offered the loft for Prabhupada to share with David Allen.     

David Allen had heard that Harvey Cohen was moving to San Francisco if he could sublet his loft.  Harvey hadn’t known David very long, but on the night before Harvey A.I.R. was supposed to leave, he coincidentally met David three different times in three different places on the Lower East Side.  Harvey took this as a sign that he should rent the loft to David, but he specifically stipulated that the Swami should move in.