Season 3 Episode 9 - T-Centralen

The subway can tell you a lot about the geography of a city. Who gets off where and why? But at the central station all those wires get crossed and people are there for all types of reasons to work, to shop, to hustle, to hand out, to protest, to get out as fast as possible.

So T-Centalen ticks a lot of factors on the Stockholm spectrum between fear and security. 1) Crowded and 2) Unpredictable and 3) Controlled.

We’ll be navigating all three of these as we do the unimaginable, take our time in T-Centralen.

Script

ANASS 0:00

It was like leaving the metro station in T Centralen or leaving the metro station going home. I was never like worried or feel that something would happen to me.

[Intro Music]

Jess 0:31

Welcome to Here There Be Dragons. This season, I’m taking you to Stockholm. I’m your host, Jess Myers.

Episode 9: T-Centralen

[Quote] 0:43

“…everyone is running around…”

“…that's where like most demonstrations are held.”

“Just crowded. Commercialization.”

“…there is like a lot of police…”

“It's fun. It's fun. I like it there.”

“I know everybody's in a hurry, but you don’t have to be that rude…”

[Music]

Jess 1:17

When I landed in Arlanda Airport on my way to see Stockholm for the first time, I was armed with some idiot-proof directions:

Take the airport shuttle towards Cityterminalen. Do not take the Arlanda Express train, that's three times the price. I'll meet you at Cityterminalen bus station if you text ok?

Ok, got it. After an uneventful bus trip past farmhouses in red cladding and skinny pine trees I arrive at Cityterminalen aka T-Centralen. As the only train station that connects all three of Stckholm’s subway lines and the region rail, T-Centralen is the busiest train station in Sweden. And it felt that way.

When I stepped off the bus and wheeled into the maylay of the station past a shopping center who that could rival the malls of my native New Jersey. Shoulder to shoulder with other commuters I loaded the SL-Access subway pass my friend handed to me. And with his help (thank you Bjorn) shouldered a duffle past the head height sliding door turnstile. An elevator later, we were waiting on the red line platform and I have to say: a little out of breath.

Being in T-Centralen was the only time I felt like I was back in New York. There was all the bustle that I didn’t see in the city itself, and the train station also connects to Sergels Torg a huge square that has been used for some of the most visible protests in the city. And to Kulturhuset one of the most accessible libraries and theaters. 

All this unique density creates an opportunity for interaction that does not exist anywhere else in the city. As Samuel said all the way back in episode 4:

SAMUEL 3:04

Who gets on and off where and that was like the people of color, the working class people, the families who are migrant or have migrant backgrounds always live on the far outside of the subway lines.

Jess 3:21

The subway can tell you a lot about the geography of a city. Who gets off where and why? But at the central train station, all those wires all get crossed and people are there for all types of reasons to work, to shop, to hustle, to hand out, to protest, to get out as soon as possible.

But where there are lots of people there also tends to be a lot of control. As open as the train station is to the public, its closeness to commerce, to protests, and general business also draws a lot of police. So T-Centalen ticks a lot of factors on the Stockholm spectrum between fear and security.  1) Crowded 2) Unpredictable and 3) Controlled.

We’ll be navigating all three of these as we do the unimaginable, take our time in T-Centralen.

[Music]

YASMEEN 4:20

I have waited if I can because it's not even like one of racist attacks but also people in T-Centalen. I know everybody's in a hurry, but you don't have to be that rude, you know? So if I can avoid it and go off either in freedom's plan, change trains or go off is loose and change trains. That's what I do. I just avoid the train station in T-Centalen.

ERIK 4:47

Perhaps it's like the stress of the whole situation that you almost feel like you're part of our like, big and community where everyone is running around and having, I mean, not really connecting to each other, and just the stress of it being so many people in a small area and perhaps not having your like personal space.

The chaos, chaotic-ness of it mean because I don't have any problem at all being in a concert standing back together and looking at the same direction and everything has its everyone is there for a reason. And the same reason. So perhaps it's something of the chaotic nature of it. At T-Centalen, at least.

BJÖRN 5:37

The central station is also like a place where it's safe and not safe. It's like, in between all the time, I mean, it's obviously very safe in one sense. And in another sense, it's not safe at all.

So the explosion of people is like, both ways, I would say, that is like the public space where you're like, the more people it is in the public space, you are more exposed to the sort of like other people, some predictable in that sense. Because it's the city center, it's the most people it's the most sound. And also, because it's it's a bottleneck, all kinds of people are passing through or are in the city center.

While the most most these days it's so stressful, so much stressful energy. And people, you just feel like you're you're standing in someone's way all the time. And also, because a lot of the real people living on the street are also living around the city center. And many of them have real, real severe health issues and can't... they are very spontaneous. It has actually happened that some some person have jumped me and you can just see on them that they are high on something and they can't control themselves. And you can have an understanding about what kind of situation they are, but quite still fretful, encountering a person like that.

Jess 7:18

In the stress and bustle of T-Centralen a lot of Stockholmers had their own strategies for keeping their cool.

ANDREA 7:23

Growing up in New York. As a woman, as a girl, you always learned strategies, you learned ways of creating the sort of wall around you when you need it. So you give off the vibe that, you know, yeah, you can bother me, but it's going to be a problem for you as well. So people think twice.

I always walk like I know where I'm going, even if I don't. For example, I always walk looking up, I try not to be on my phone, or or I always try to, to look like I'm aware of what's around me. I always try to look at people, like directly. And if somebody who I think is testing the waters, looks at me, then I stare back, like, really just actively, maybe even arrogantly. Because I mean, it's something my mother taught me and it's actually work.

Then I also kind of scan the area. So to see if, okay, do I need to cross the street? Do I need to, you know, you sort of plan a few seconds ahead, like, what's my exit strategy, what's just, you know, just have a little plan in your head as to what's going to happen.

Things can happen on the subway, for example. And I've had a lot of friends who've been harassed in different ways on the subway, one of the things I don't do is sit in, in the window. Like at night, I sit on the, on the outside seat. And the same thing I teach my daughter is like, you sit on the outside seat, because you don't want to be pinned in, you're always want to be able to find a way out. So yeah, those are some of my strategies.

MICHAEL 9:01

So many things that Andrea said was really very interesting. And I really... but also realize that as a man you have a different usually have different strategies to avoid trouble or to avoid you know, people are costing you or whatever, or being seen as a threat, I suppose.

But I mean, firstly, I am also hyper-aware of my surroundings when I'm moving in the cities. Any cities. I'm always really, really I know, way before something is going to happen, or someone threatening is going to do something I usually have a feeling about that. So I have observed very far ahead.

But then I kind of have the opposite strategy in terms of avoiding trouble is kind of averting my gaze not looking at people when I come close to them. So kind of, you know, minding my own business, showing that I'm minding my own business, showing that I have a purpose. I'm going somewhere, I'm not going to cost you or whatever. So I think that's that that's something that differs.

I also kind of exude something, I think I usually wear a frown when I'm in the city, I usually probably look kind of, I'm not open and smiling and looking at people looking at people in their eyes to, to sort of signal openness, I'm doing quite the opposite. So I'm probably frowning a lot.

Jess 10:22

But at T-Centalen it’s not just the massive amounts of people that kept residents on the alert. It was also how those people are controlled. There are a lot of visible police at the station and for some Stockholmers of color that created a real insecurity.

NESRIN 10:38

Around Norrmalm, and T-Centralen. But at night time or you know when it gets dark. When it gets...

 Because there is like a lot of police around there, and many criminal activities, like robberies, and there's also people that are taking drugs. So that's why it feels a little less safe.

ULRIKA 11:15

We've gone through these periods over the REVA, for instance, where they were checking people's papers at the exits and entrances to the subway, you know, those kinds of things when you feel the state and the privatized states security management sort of thing.

So basically, for me, the things that are presented as safety-enhancing are actually terrifying to me, that makes me feel unsafe. So it's in that sense, it's not so much a place as it is, well, maybe the subway, or, you know, store entries.

And and I say that for, for embodied and experienced reasons, but also political reasons, because I think there's a discourse right now in Sweden, that's very much about all the political parties are engaging in questions of safety. And we keep our safety that we are concerned with the safety of our citizens, and so forth and so on.

And I, I think that whole discourse is in, you know, fostering encouraging, you know, anxiety and stress in the population. I think of the places where whiteness and wealth have to be protected as unsafe places because it creates very much a sense of anxiety and hostility. I don't see... I've never seen diversity as something that's frightening. But obviously, I've realized that for a lot of white people it seems to be. So I'm mostly afraid of white people.

Jess 12:51

In her paper Policing Difference, Stockholm-based sociologist Vanessa Barker talks about how the police publicly create and reinforce social hierarchies. 

VANESSA 13:02

I think that there are really powerful agents, right? In fact, they're not just sort of reflecting or reproducing the social order and social relations, but they're really these active agents in creating new identities, right?

So the the people who felt like they belonged, all of a sudden are told basically, the way they're confronted by the police are told that they don't belong. And that's a really, and these are state figures, right? So it's not just sort of somebody in a position of authority, but it's someone who has the authority of the state through violence.

So they're very powerful figures. There's a number of different cases. And one I think another compelling example, that I came across in the relatively early stages of my research on this was when the police were involved in border control operation. This was in the beginning of taking police like domestic police and having them carry out a border control migration issues.

Jess 13:56 

In her paper, Vanessa talks about a 2013 collaboration between the Migration Board and the police that gave the police the power to assist in expediting deportation orders. The police went about this by demanding proof of rightful residencies from quote unquote, boring looking people in public spaces. One key location in Stockholm was T-Centralen. For Vanessa, the publicness of these searches had a very specific purpose.

VANESSA 14:25 

This is called REVA, R-E-V-A, this REVA operation.

 [TV News Clip]

But what was distinctive or interesting about this. They wasn't doing border control at the border right at airports, those kinds of things like that. They were doing basically border control in the center of the city in all these transportation hubs in Stockholm in Malmö, in Göteborg.

And what they were doing was they were trying to find people who had a deportation order. So there were a series of people Migration Board had given orders to leave the country, they didn't have a legal right to remain, and I basically charged the police with trying to find them.

And what happened was, the police went to transportation hubs to try to locate people. I mean, first, you want to ask, well, why didn't they take, [laughs] you know why didn't this occur at a kind of earlier stage? Or go to known addresses or former employments, you know, there's all sorts of other ways they could have done this. But they did this more public high-visibility operation in the center of towns, right? So you think about the public spectacle of policing as well, highly visible, T-Centralen and pulling people over when they come through the turnstile.

And so they were asking people for their identification. And this is something that was not done in Sweden or in Europe, right, the whole ID card, asking for identification, it's really seen as in violation and intrusion into your personal integrity to be asked for your ID.

And... so they have they have deportation orders, right, they're looking for people. But instead of pulling over random people, which would be random or arbitrary, and then you could say, we're all affected, we're all being intruded upon. They would pull over asked to stop people of color, right, or ethnic minorities, people with foreign background.

And so they stopped people, the high rates of people, nine out of 10 were like foreign background, and most of those had citizenship and or legal residents. But that encounter with the police, right, so A) it's happening in the center of town in a public square. They're pulled over by the police already, like suspect you think about how stigma works. They're asked for their ID, other people are just going about commuters going about their business, they're clearly pulled in a circle because of the way that they look right. And that's what the police, the some of them would say, like the foreign looking this was an inefficient way of going about this.

And it's also communicated to them that their belonging or their suspiciousness is not only about some potential idea that they have no legal right to remain. They're suspicious as members of the society. And so is a real, real public outrage.

I mean, on you know, the positive side of Sweden that these police operation and it was known it had this racial profiling element to it, it upset people. And I mean, not only people who were profiled, but your kind of ordinary citizen, and there were a number of public protests in the subways, protesting this kind of thing, and eventually was kind of shut down and sort of moved around.

But so it wasn't as if people in Sweden thought oh, yeah, that's, you know, that's the way you're going to do it. So there was a kind of pushback against the the policing their role. But in that moment, right, again, it's kind of creating categories of belonging doing this in a really public in a public manner that signals to other people.

Jess 17:50

But T-Centralen isn’t just a place where people are controlled, it is also one of the most visible protest locations in Sweden.

Every train station in the city has a public square. And as the biggest station in the city, T-Centralen has a public square to match. Sunken below street level so it’s accessible to the station below, Sergels Torg of Plattan is decked in black and white pavers that makes it stand out from the surrounding streets and shops.

Sergels Torg is so large that it’s is known for all types of large-scale demonstrations from the anarchist to the authoritarian:

TANVIR 18:31

Plattan, which is what they call the main square of T-Centralen. Plattan. And that's where most demonstrations are held, and a lot of very historic marches and demonstrations in Stockholm are placed there. And that's also why there's a couple of stairs that go up from where the demonstrations are held, and they built like a pulpit, just a place where people who can stand there and do speeches, you know? And then they can have speakers, loud speakers, and talk to the people.

So it's really, like the city thought of how important the space is for expressing your opinions  and freedom and speech. So they really built it into the design of the square when they reconstructed it. And everyone has to pass the central station. That's why it's an interesting space, and that's why you get all kinds of people who pass there, you know: rich people, business people, drug addicts, people who sell drugs, you have kids, you have youth, you have immigrants, you have Swedish people, native people, anyone has to pass there.

So in that sense, it's also the heart of the city, the center of the city. 'Cause you can just sit on the stairs and people watch there as well, and then you see people of... all kinds of people.

Jess 20:04

Sergels Torg may be well trafficked in protests, but for an older generation of activist, like Gunilla who was very active in the Anti-War communist movement, the space is a bit sanitized and contained.

GUNILLA 20:18

No, there, I think it's a place that is so… so porous, so you couldn't gather. I have a remembrance once when I was in Rome, and I was at a Terminy, at Central Station, which is a very big hall, opened, and just like a street. And when I was there trying to find a ticket for some, there was a big demonstration going just through the station hall. And then I could think, this is a very open place, where you can have a demonstration.

In Stockholm, the central hall is so crowded with all sort of selling and propaganda for different commercial things. So you couldn't get into it, you could never think of going with a demonstration through the Centralen in Stockholm. It's just crowded with commercialization, so you have to find places where this doesn't happen.

[Music]

Jess 21:42

Whether in protest or simply passing through, the density of T-Centralen and Sergels Torg create a special opportunity. Standing out becomes less of a difficult proposition. Similar to Chatlet-Les Halles in our season on Paris, the central train station became a place for counterculture to gather. 

MARIE-LOUISE 22:02

No, I think it's definitely been as a child I have very strong memories of normal and the city center also this is where always my mom went when we went shopping on Saturdays. And a really strong memory that I still like you know every time I hear it warms my heart. It's that when in the 80s when I was a kid, Hari Krishna used to like uh in the train like dance around the city, like starting in Sergels Torg.

But then they could like move in this massive train dancing and singing, you can hear them coming with their little bells and drums. And that's like something from the urban fabric that I miss today because they like if they were hundreds of Hari Krishna when I grew up, I feel like they're like 5 today.

I think I always found Segels Torg this mesmerizing place. I think still to this day it's one of my favorite places in Stockholm. I think it's absolutely magnificent in that sense. And also it had this all these walks of life of people.

There used to be this lady who used to play Christian songs on what do you call it, electric piano, uh and she became this like institution. She was there every day, not depending weather, and she was just singing for the lord like her heart would burst and this electric piano had all the signs taped. It had been with her so long it was falling apart and she sold these cassettes where she was singing.

So she was part of the urban fabric and there was also break dancers when I was really small. It was very much like drug dealing going on at that sight, but you know. I think it was this mix of all the people in Sweden that would meet in this like nexus of the city and I really enjoyed that.

TIMIMIE 24:17

It was just more like hanging out, not in the place for like fun stuff, it was just like being angry, hanging out with punk rockers, and mostly just like sitting in cold stairs and screaming, and like this leather jacket with all of these sharp, is it called just nails? No, nil tar.

[Jess: “Spikes.”]

Spikes, it's called spikes. Having a mohawk and like corpse paint and stuff like that. [Music]

[Music]

When people talk about like young kids today having so much makeup, I'm like, I wore just the same amount of makeup, but in a very different way. Like, I did not do contouring, I looked like a baby-faced Alice Cooper I think? Yeah.

But it was also like, a lot of drunk adults and young kids not having anywhere to go, or having somewhere to go that they really don't wanna be, a lot of angry kids, and like I still remember that it was not as bad as it is today with, like when you have to, like, if you can't afford a traveling card, it was easier to just sneak into the subway, today they are fucking mean. They were mean back then, but today they are mean.

Jess 25:50

For Timimie, a poet and indigenous rights activist, T-Centralen was a place to hang out with other counter cultural scenes. For them, the train station was a place for outsiders without a lot of options.

TIMIMIE 26:03

I think it was because some of us knew exactly why we were angry. And sometimes we didn't. But just to find other people and young kids being stared out because of the way that we looked. And having a somewhat unsorted political agenda, at least.

And maybe we didn't all agree, but everyone needed that space. Everyone needed that thing. And instead of being stared out because you were indigenous, or because you had big tits, or because you were black, or because you were super short, it was instead that you made it a statement that I have a fucking Mohawk. Or I have all of these spikes, or I shaved my entire head and my eyebrows and then it's just like yeah, if you're going to stare them fucking stare, I'm going to make it a show.

Everybody loves a freak show. Everyone always wants a freak show. Everybody always wants to be enlightened and entertained and preferably at the same time. And I think that's what subculture does. And I think that's partly why subculture was created both as a survival mechanism to be like, Okay, if you're gonna stare anyways, then I might just do this.

People are in general, very, have so much built up and excited due to these questions, and they just want to be part of something. And then it's easier maybe to be a part of a subculture because it's, it's a struggle always having to reclaim your roots and claim that space.

Jess 27:48

In our conversations with Stockholmers, T-Centralen became more than a train station. It was almost a portal into a hyper-Stockholm where are the city’s pleasures and anxieties knotted together.

NASIM 28:00

Segels Torg, I still love Segels Torg. It’s like there are some many stories connected to Segels Torg we have a big culture house that's now it's getting renovated but usually it has a library for people from all around Stockholm go.

There's this city theater- a bit more exclusive though not everyone goes there but still you have this arts spaces that are for free. There's a meeting point for the whole- and it's also actually the geographical center of the city, but I would say that that is also one of my centers.

MICHEAL 28:38

Also to me I think you know CultureHuset actually the main cultural house in the center of Stockholm, Segels Torg. I like sitting up in one of the bars and watching down- looking down at the at the square down, looking at people coming and going. You feel the buzz of the city. You feel like you're really in the middle of the city. And you're inside culture. I like that a lot. I like that place. That's where I- yeah I like to go there every now and again. It's a long time since but I really like sitting there, because you feel all the- you get to experience all the paradoxes of the city, all the problems of the city, but also kind of the beauty of so many people moving you know, and almost touching each other but not really.

[Music]

Jess 29:46

As hectic as it was every time I went through T-Centralen, it gave me a special sense of Stockholm. It’s a place where so many of the dispersed elements of life were all crammed into one space: the diversity, the rebellion, the commercial, and the controlled all wrapped in one…

But big chaotic central train stations are nothing unique. From Penn Station in New York to Chatlet-Les Halles in Paris these super hubs that connect whole regions are pretty common. But in the city of Stockholm, where norms and standards are constantly reinforced in the urban fabric, T-Centralen stood out as a break point, where the city could breathe and stretch and wreak a little havoc. 

Next episode we’ll take hustle and bustle all the way down and visit the place many Stockholmers said they couldn’t live without: Nature.

Jess 31:04

We are produced with the generous support of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and Konstnärsnämnden (The Swedish Arts Committee). Thank you to our senior producer Adélie Pojzman-Pontay and our team of graduate assistants from the architecture department at the Rhode Island School of Design: Bilal Ismail Ahmed, Daniel Choconta Guerrero, Kim Ayala, and Uthman Olowo. Fatou Camara consults for the show. Cory Jacobs does the music. And Adriene Lilly does our sound design.

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Okay, until next time, this has been Here There Be Dragons!

[OUTRO]

JASMINE 32:04

For me, okay, I’m gonna be honest, I thought that was Stockholm, ok? but I usually go there, when it’s we’re going to do something big, like me and my friends oh yeah today we're going to T-Centralen because I don't know like it's fun. It's fun I like it there. 

[Music]