Brief History of Our ISKCON Miami Deities

ISKCON Miami was established around 1970 and incorporated in 1973. Since at least 1972 there has been regular deity worship with installed deities. The first installed Deities were small deities of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balarama and Lady Subhadra. At that time the temple was on Mary Street in Coconut Grove which is one street over from where the temple is presently located. At that time, the kitchen was on Center Street, one street over from Mary Street and when the Deity's offerings were ready the pujaris would have to walk around the block carrying the covered offering plate to the deities in Their temple on Mary Street. Sometimes the pujaris would walk in the rain with the deity's plate, and inevitably their delivery of the Lord's offering would draw comments like, "What's for lunch?" by some passersby.

Some time in 1972 or 1973 the temple was moved for just a few months to a large church building on North West 4th Street in Miami. In that location, worshiping the Deities was a little easier, but for some reason, almost all of the eight brahmana initiated devotees there, including the temple president, relocated over the following few months. Since there was only one püjäré left, the new temple management decided to stop worshiping those deities rather than to chance committing offenses by not worshiping Them nicely. The last pujari there was willing to carry on the Deity worship alone, if necessary, until others came, but his offer was not accepted. Whatever devotees remained in the temple at that time moved back to the house on Center Street and worshiped Panca-tattva (Lord Caitanya and His principle associates) in the form of a painting.
In 1974, under new administration, the temple was moved to a 2.5 acre leased property with three large banyan trees on Kumquat Street. On April 1, 1974 we installed our large Gaura-Nitäi deities. The next year, Srila Prabhupada visited our temple for three days and gave Bhagavad-gétä lectures out under the banyan trees for three nights. He lectured on Chapter 13, verses 1-4.

We remained on Kumquat Street for about two years and then purchased a seven acre property near to Florida International University. While we were there we also established the worship of our small Gaura-Nitai Deities, the murti forms of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta on the altar and Srila Prabhupada on his vyasasana. We increased the offering of milk sweets to seven varieties, a standard that we would maintain for the next sixteen years. The standards of other bhoga offerings and deity standards increased during that period. While there we grew all of the flowers needed for the Deities in a two acre piece of land on the temple grounds and we even had our own bee hives and plenty of honey. That property also had a small pond, two white swans, several peacocks, fifty mango trees and ten avocado trees, many exotic fruit trees and a even few cows. Much of the milk that we used came from our own cows.

About five years later, in 1979, under a new administration, the temple was again moved, this time to a former hotel on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. During our ten years there, more deities were installed. Sri Sri Radha-Vrajabihari were installed on Lord Caitanya's appearance day in 1983 and Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balarama and Lady Subhadra were installed on Janmasthami in 1986. It is interesting to note that the Jagannatha Deities were made by one of the pujaris who serves in the famous Jagannatha Puri temple and that our Deities arrived in Miami by ship on the Jagannatha Puri Ratha-yatra day in 1986. Similarly, our large Gaura Nitai Deities arrived from India on Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day in 1974.

Sometimes the Lord gives us opportunities to test our own faith in Him. One such instance came while we were in Miami Beach Temple. The purchase contract demanded a $70,000 balloon payment that would be due in only months. Like most of our temples we were struggling to maintain week by week. By our own strength, it seemed impossible to come up with the money to save the temple. We knew that if we could please the Lord He could very easily give us the necessary funds, so we made a plan. Since the temple room had been made of three adjacent hotel rooms, the construction left sewage pipes from the upstairs toilets passing near the deities. Also, the temple floor was still covered with deteriorating vinyl tiles. The decision was made to spend what money had been collected for the payment to correct the problem with the sewage pipes and to lay an all marble floor in the temple room. There were other improvements as well. We went full force into simultaneously making the repairs and into trying to raise the funds to make the balloon payment. The end result was that our deities got a newly renovated temple room and we were able to make the $70,000 balloon payment on time.

For various reasons, we ended up selling the Miami Beach temple property and temporarily moving all of the Deities to a small house in Coral Gables, Florida until a suitable new temple could be purchased. We remained there for about one year, and even though the house\ temple was quite small, we completely maintained our established offerings and aratis, Deity dressings and festivals. Even the day that the Deities moved in, we did not miss any offerings or other services.
In 1989 the deities were again moved to what is our present and final location at 3220 Virginia Street in Coconut Grove. With money saved from the sale of the Miami Beach temple we made a large down payment on the new temple and had funds to do a major renovation. To date, we have remained here for the last 36 years.