King's Garden

This guide to King's Garden in Stockholm centers on May 12, 1971, when police arrived with chainsaws to fell thirteen century-old elms for a new subway entrance, and found a crowd already waiting under the branches. You'll hear about the phone chains that summoned reinforcements overnight, the folk singer and pensioners who joined students at the trees, and the standoff between climbers and mounted police. It's a story about who a Swedish city listens to when a vote about drainage repairs turns into something else entirely.