Friday's parting shot

Photo by Stacie Joy 

From beneath the Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park today... the start of the annual Hare Krishna Festival weekend in NYC.

Today in makeshift fire pits by the Hare Krishna tree in Tompkins Square Park

Top two photos by Joe; FDNY pic by Steven 

We were told some "kids" (teens) decided to start a campfire of sorts by the Hare Krishna tree in the center of Tompkins Square Park (and just as the rain started around 5:15 p.m.) 

The FDNY was there in minutes to extinguish the small blaze...

EVG reader Joe did get yelled at for taking the top photo instead of putting out the fire (even as the FDNY was already in the Park)...

Tuesday's parting shot

Photo by Steven 

A spring-time view of the Hare Krishna tree in the center of Tompkins Square Park...

Saturday's parting shot

View of the Hare Krishna tree today in Tompkins Square Park...

A climb up into the Hare Krishna tree

A tree crew showed up today in the center of Tompkins Square Park ... with the Hare Krishna tree the focus of their attention. (There were admittedly a few anxious moments while people wondered what they might be doing. You never know what the city has planned.)

However, the workers said they were there to test equipment... with one worker showing the other some tree-climbing tips, per EVG correspondent Steven ...











Thanks to Steven for the photos.

Remembering Todd Youth

[Photo by Derek Berg]

Tonight, friends and family came together — in Tompkins Square Park and at Niagara — to remember Todd “Youth” Schofield.

The NY hardcore guitarist, who lent his talents to bands including Agnostic Front, Warzone, Murphy’s Law, D Generation and Danzig, among others, died on Oct. 27. He was 47. (A cause of death has not been reported.)

Earlier this evening, his loved ones placed flowers and candles at the Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park.

His children, Abijah and Eliana, who launched a crowdfunding campaign titled The Youth Fund, wrote that "our dad became interested in Krishna Consciousness as a teen in the mid 80s."

A sign of spring

The Hare Krishna tree in Tompkins Square Park is in bloom, as seen in the above photo via Steven...

Mid-afternoon fall foliage break from Tompkins Square Park

The Hare Krishna tree finally gets its own portable toilet in Tompkins Square Park

Or perhaps it's left over from the TV shoot today for "Sneaky Pete."

Photo this evening by Steven

A moment in Tompkins Square Park

Summer is here,
the sky is blue.
Whoa! the red-tailed hawks all sing as if they knew.
Today's the day, we'll say, "I do"

Photo this evening by Greg Masters

Your Sunday morning Hare Krishna tree photo

Tompkins Square Park a little earlier... It's out. A little chilly.

The Hare Krishna tree is showing some green in Tompkins Square Park

Thanks to Goggla for the photo today...

And a bonus photo at the Park entrance on Avenue A and East Ninth Street...

49 years ago today, the Hare Krishna movement started in Tompkins Square Park

Here's a little history courtesy of Off the Grid (via The New York Times):

In 1965, after a difficult month on a steamship, a spiritual leader named Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada arrived in New York convinced that if Americans would embrace his conception of Krishna consciousness, the other countries in the world would follow. In 1966 he founded the International Society of Krishna Consciousness at 26 Second Avenue, near 2nd Street.

On October 9, 1966, Swami Prabhupada led a group of followers to the nearby Tompkins Square Park. Under the leafy canopy of an American elm tree they began to chant a distinctive 16-word mantra: ”Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.” It was Swami Prabhupada’s first outdoor chanting ceremony outside of India and it was the birth of the Hare Krishna religion.

Read more of the tree's history here.

EVG correspondent Steven took the above photo this morning of Vani, who was here to mark the anniversary.

Checking the Hare Krishna tree for Dutch Elm Disease in Tompkins Square Park

A bit of a startling sight this morning when a tree crew towing a shredder pulled up to the Hare Krishna tree in the middle of Tompkins Square Park.

Workers were there, though, just to inspect the American Elm, which was the site of the birth of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States in 1966.









EVG contributor Steven, who took these photos, talked with one of the workers, who was checking the tree for Dutch Elm Disease. He said that the tree is sound, though he did have to remove a few suspect branches...

Someone put a fake window on the Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park

Really?

Photo by Bobby Williams

Earlier today under the Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park

Photo by Bobby Williams