A Place of His Own

Sri Chinmoy soon obtained a post as junior consular assistant in the passport and visa section of the Indian Consulate.  With a modest income, to gain some measure of privacy, he took his own room on the first floor of 214 West 108th Street near Columbia University.  In order to escape the confinement of his tiny 8x7 foot room, Sri Chinmoy spent many hours strolling in Morningside Park or sitting on the benches lining the central mall of upper Broadway.  Unfortunately, his search for a peaceful place to meditate was usually thwarted by neighbourhood women who argued continuously with one another on adjacent benches.

108th Street in Manhattan

Sri Chimoy soon moved to an apartment on 44 West 76th Street across Central Park from his place of work.

76th Street in Manhattan

On his extremely limited income, Sri Chinmoy found it necessary to subsist on a meagre diet of canned soup, potato chips and an occasional candy bar or ice cream cone.  Despite the hardships, many of the exquisite poems later published in the book My Flute were composed in this apartment.

In the spring of 1965, Sri Chinmoy moved to 4614 10th Avenue, Apt. 2A, in Brooklyn. From here he commuted to his job at the Consulate by subway. Later, he moved to two other locations in Brooklyn (4826 New Utrecht Avenue and 3817 Hamilton Parkway). Most of the stories in the series "Subway Experiences" are from this Brooklyn period.