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All the United States New York State New York City Manhattan Hare Krishna Tree
AO Edited

Hare Krishna Tree

One of the few remaining American elm trees in New York’s Tompkins Square Park was the birthplace of a new religion.

New York, New York

Added By
Meg Neal
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Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park main plaza   Eden, Janine and Jim
Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park main plaza   Eden, Janine and Jim
Devotion to the Hare Krishna Tree   robert reckliss
Two elms in Tompkins Square Park main plaza (Hare Krishna Tree is the one behind)   Eden, Janine and Jim
The Hare Krishna Tree is one of the largest elms in the park   David Shankbone
Shade back when… Tompkins Square Park, c. 1910   Library of Congress/LC-DIG-ggbain-09628
Holiday trees in the park   Eden, Janine and Jim
Hare Krishna Tree   David Shankbone
  SEANETTA / Atlas Obscura User
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About

For a hundred years this elegant American elm at the center of Tompkins Square Park was just a tree. Then, in 1966, the Hare Krishna mantra was chanted under its sprawling canopy for the first time, and it became the birthplace of a religion.

To Hare Krishnas, this tree is a sacred site. For everyone else, it would be easy to stroll by the old elm in Manhattan’s East Village and have no idea it’s a religious landmark. It’s a handsome tree — American elms are quite rare now, known for their wide-stretching canopies — but otherwise inconspicuous. But if you happened to wander by on October 9, 1966, you would have heard the “Hare Krishna" mantra chanted publicly for the first time outside of India, marking the birth of the spiritual movement in the West.

At the base of the tree, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and a group of robed followers spent two hours chanting, dancing, playing tambourines and cymbals, and seeking Krishna — a pure and blissful consciousness. Among them was Beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg, who was living nearby. He later wrote, “The ecstasy of chant or mantra has replaced LSD and other drugs for many of the swami’s followers.”

At the time, lower Manhattan was the epicenter of a bohemian counterculture, the Haight-Ashbury of the East Coast. Hippies flowed into Tompkins Square Park, which has long been both a neighborhood respite and a symbol of subversion, where activists staged anti-war protests and women marched for liberation. Not long after the Swami first sang Hare Krishna under the old elm tree, legends like Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead played at the park’s new bandshell.

If you venture a few blocks from the park you’ll find 26 Second Avenue, where Swami Prabhupada founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He rented a storefront that would serve as both the religious movement’s headquarters and a Hare Krishna temple. Amazingly, the temple remains there today, next to a vintage boutique.

Devotees still travel to Tompkins Square Park to visit the Hare Krishna Tree, where George Harrison once sought a higher consciousness, leaving garland and flowers around the holy elm’s wide trunk.

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Music History Religion Trees Parks Rites And Rituals Plants Sacred Spaces

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Open to the public, about a 10-minute walk from various subway lines. The tree is the large elm at the south end of the Central Grove section, in just about the middle of the park.

Community Contributors

Added By

Meg

Edited By

Blindcolour, SEANETTA

  • Blindcolour
  • SEANETTA

Published

May 3, 2016

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  • https://heritagetrees.wordpress.com/
  • http://gvshp.org/blog/2013/08/27/the-hare-krishna-tree/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tompkins_Square_Park
Hare Krishna Tree
Tompkins Square Park (btw Ave. A & Ave. B
and btw East 7th St. & East 10th St.)
New York, New York, 10009
United States
40.726137, -73.981988
Visit Website
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