In 1971, Stockholm residents climbed 13 elms slated for a subway entrance; mass protests stopped the felling, and the trees survived

Kungsträdgården is a central garden in Stockholm that has long served as a gathering place. There are cafes under the ancient trees and blocks in and around the park that have already been remodelled a lot as Stockholm developed. In the course of post-war planning, the centre has always been considered a subject of renewal, which included demolition, construction of roads and of new connections between different places of the city. One such connection, implied building a subway and construction of an entrance nearby. That place was occupied by a line of elms and an ancient tea-house. Those people who disapproved of such development did not limit themselves in expressing their opinion in writing letters only. They organized themselves, watched the construction site and when builders came there with saws, some people sat in the branches of the trees.City 67 and the plan to fell 13 elms for a subway entranceAccording to Stockholmskällan, Stockholm’s history portal, the idea emerged in May 1967 when a project called City 67 proposed subway entrances and shops in the park. According to the English- language broadcast of Sveriges Radio celebrating the 40th anniversary of the tree-chopping incident, the town council had previously ordered the demolition of numerous old buildings throughout central Stockholm in efforts to fight poverty, rat infestation and infectious disease. The Sveriges Radio broadcast also reported that an architecture student discovered the tree plan while visiting a classmate in the planning department. Alternative Stad activists got three alternative plans along with this one, where there was no need for the felling of trees and which the city government tried to keep secret; all four plans were posted near the tea house. The municipality insisted that these elms were unhealthy. According to a 2021 Tidningen Syre article marking the 50th anniversary of the protest, the municipality relied on a single assessment, while specialists from Skogshögskolan independently reviewed the trees and found them healthy.The night of 11 to 12 May 1971 and the protesters in the branches The official date for the felling was 13 May and Sveriges Radio notes that the protesters did not trust it, so the workmen arrived earlier, in the night between 11 and 12 May. In her study “Preservation and Protest: Counterculture and Heritage in 1970s Sweden,” published in Future Anterior, Thordis Arrhenius describes workmen arriving with chainsaws early on 12 May, a time chosen to get around protesters who had been camping at the site for several weeks. Thousands of protesters took part and the protest was largely non-violent. Protesters climbed into the trees and Sveriges Radio reports that there was then no reasonable way to disperse them. Thousands of Stockholmers kept up the protest for a whole week, sleeping in tents and hammocks, according to the subway art guide Stockholm Art Walk. Atlas Obscura explains that the majority of the elms are still standing and one of them bears chainsaw marks from that night.What Daniel Helldèn’s 2005 thesis found about the political establishment The doctoral thesis Demokratin utmanas: Almstriden och det politiska etablissemanget, written by Daniel Helldén at Stockholm University and defended in 2005, examines how politicians in central positions in Stockholm and nationally, together with the editorial pages of Stockholm newspapers, understood the conflict. It also questions the reasons for the politicians of the city getting involved in the events and the relation of the social democrats to the radicalization of the late 1960s.In the press release from Stockholm University about the thesis, it is stated that from the perspective of the politicians, the event turned out to be a failure as they had to give way to something that was referred to as parliament of the streets. The press release explains that the party’s hierarchical structure was out of step with the spirit of the time. According to Helldén, in his 2011 interview with Sveriges Radio, the study described above led to permanent changes.Arsenalsgatan 10 and the shift in Swedish planning after 1971Stockholm Art Walk reports that construction was delayed and the entrance eventually received a new address at Arsenalsgatan 10, which left the elms in place. The Library of Congress subject record for the Elm Conflict describes the dispute as one of the first major, concrete, political clashes at the municipal level in Post war, Sweden. In her study mentioned above, Arrhenius argues that the protest marked a turning point, weakening broad support for the modernisation drive begun in the 1930s and for the Social Democratic government’s planning approach. Furthermore, she explained that the shift from the modern impacted the preservation culture of Sweden by widening the definition of historic things. According to a 2011 article in The Local, Ame Fredlund, the assistant director of town planning at the City Council, said the main effect was far greater respect for people’s points of view. Decades later, the trees faced a different threat. According to a 2021 SVT report, the park’s elms were threatened by elm disease and were being treated with vaccinations given through tree syringes.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.