Posted by Chris Herrick on October 22, 2011 at 5:43am
Do any devotees know the address of the original Hare Krishna temple in Santa Fe, New Mexico? I understand Srila Prabhupada visited here once in 1968. Many thanks.
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Hari bol! I don't know if you're still watching for this more than nine years later, @Chris Herrick, but I ran across your post here while googling some related info and though I've had no connection with ISKCON since returning to the Torah of my ancestors forty-some years ago, I joined this site just to answer your question.
The first Hare Krishna temple in Santa Fe was not quite in the city of Santa Fe. It was in Santa Fe county, in a historic building called Seton Castle, in Seton Village, NM, a few miles south of Santa Fe, off the Old Las Vegas Highway. The building, a national historic landmark, is no longer there, alas, having burned down beyond repair while under restoration in 2005. It was on Seton Village Rd, but I don't know if it had a street address. The mailing address would have been Seton Castle, Seton Village, NM 87501.
But I doubt that's the place you mean to be asking about. Few people remember now that Seton Castle once served as a Krishna temple. I didn't know about it at the time, but I learned of it not long after the temple moved into Santa Fe proper, a few blocks from the old high school (now city hall) where I was a 15yo sophomore. My creative writing teacher told me about it when she saw me reading Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. I recognized the name of the temple from the recording of the mahamantra by the Fugs and Allen Ginsberg on their "Tenderness Junction" album, and I was stunned and overjoyed to learn that such a place existed in then-culturally conservative Santa Fe. So from my home 15 miles north I hitchhiked into town at 6:00am the next Sunday morning to meet my teacher there for the weekly "love feast." She didn't show up (broke my tender heart!), but I met Subal Das, who had been commissioned by Prabhupad to establish the Santa Fe temples, and became a frequent visitor for the brief time it remained open. The influence stayed with me and 8 or 9 years later I considered taking initiation, but then my life and devotion to G!d took a different turn.
That second Santa Fe temple was at 411 W. Water St., Santa Fe, NM 87501. Google maps offers this more recent photo of the building: https://goo.gl/maps/FSCVqgQoeFsj4Ho5A
You can read the founder's account of the history of the two temples on pages 46-68 of his online memoir:
I hope I haven't bored you with my story. It was fun for me to remember, and coming here to tell it feels sort of like reconnecting with an old friend.
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Hari bol! I don't know if you're still watching for this more than nine years later, @Chris Herrick, but I ran across your post here while googling some related info and though I've had no connection with ISKCON since returning to the Torah of my ancestors forty-some years ago, I joined this site just to answer your question.
The first Hare Krishna temple in Santa Fe was not quite in the city of Santa Fe. It was in Santa Fe county, in a historic building called Seton Castle, in Seton Village, NM, a few miles south of Santa Fe, off the Old Las Vegas Highway. The building, a national historic landmark, is no longer there, alas, having burned down beyond repair while under restoration in 2005. It was on Seton Village Rd, but I don't know if it had a street address. The mailing address would have been Seton Castle, Seton Village, NM 87501.
But I doubt that's the place you mean to be asking about. Few people remember now that Seton Castle once served as a Krishna temple. I didn't know about it at the time, but I learned of it not long after the temple moved into Santa Fe proper, a few blocks from the old high school (now city hall) where I was a 15yo sophomore. My creative writing teacher told me about it when she saw me reading Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. I recognized the name of the temple from the recording of the mahamantra by the Fugs and Allen Ginsberg on their "Tenderness Junction" album, and I was stunned and overjoyed to learn that such a place existed in then-culturally conservative Santa Fe. So from my home 15 miles north I hitchhiked into town at 6:00am the next Sunday morning to meet my teacher there for the weekly "love feast." She didn't show up (broke my tender heart!), but I met Subal Das, who had been commissioned by Prabhupad to establish the Santa Fe temples, and became a frequent visitor for the brief time it remained open. The influence stayed with me and 8 or 9 years later I considered taking initiation, but then my life and devotion to G!d took a different turn.
That second Santa Fe temple was at 411 W. Water St., Santa Fe, NM 87501. Google maps offers this more recent photo of the building: https://goo.gl/maps/FSCVqgQoeFsj4Ho5A
You can read the founder's account of the history of the two temples on pages 46-68 of his online memoir:
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/39789754/an-authentic-life-1...
I hope I haven't bored you with my story. It was fun for me to remember, and coming here to tell it feels sort of like reconnecting with an old friend.
http://www.iskconbrampton.ca/iskcon.html