Sitting on his skyscraper building and he says

” So first of all, I must thank you all for bringing me in this new temple, because when I first came, my ambition was to start temple here in New York, and I was seeking the opportunity living in the Seventy-second Street. There was a house, very small house, one thousand feet space — 25 feet by 100 feet. So they wanted $100,000. So I wrote one rich friend in India, industrialist — perhaps you know him, that Kanpurwalla, Padampat Singh, Singhania. So he agreed to pay me, but the government did not allow. The Indian government did not allow to transfer money from India to here. Then I approached the, what is that, Salvation Army, the chief man. I offered him that “You are spending money in India. So I have got a friend, he’ll pay you, you pay me here.” So he asked me, “What is the rate you want to pay me?” So I told him, “The present rate is five rupees per dollar.” So he remained silent. That means he wanted more. In this way, I had no place. What to speak of the temple, I had no residential place even. So in that condition, I was thinking of returning back to India. So the shipping company I was, practically every week, I was going.
So it is a long history that I came here with a determination to start a temple in New York first, but at that time, ten years before, in 1965, it was not possible. But by the grace of Krsna, by the grace of my Guru Maharaja, you have got this place. So I must thank you very much for organizing this temple.

(Arrival Address – July 9, 1976, New York)