Pankow Resident’s Shoe Boxes of U-Bahn Tickets Trigger Building-Wide Weight Debate
Neighbors at Prenzlauer Promenade 145 say the collection has “entered the structural phase,” while BVG insists the tickets remain “emotionally valid.”
Neighborhood Features Reporter
On Tuesday morning at 8:47 a.m., residents of Prenzlauer Promenade 145 in Pankow noticed a steady, muffled dragging sound in the stairwell—followed by the appearance of three cardboard boxes marked “U6—GOOD YEAR,” “U2—MOODY,” and “MYSTERY (DO NOT MIX).”
The boxes belonged to Henning Krüger, 41, a freelance lighting technician who says he has amassed 10,214 used U-Bahn tickets since 2016, most of them single-ride paper tickets purchased “for the feeling of commitment.” Krüger stored the collection in his two-room apartment on the fourth floor until last week, when he began relocating portions to the building’s basement storage cages “to improve air flow and intimacy.”
“I’m not hoarding,” Krüger said in an interview conducted at 6:32 p.m. Tuesday outside the Edeka at Berliner Allee 29. “I’m archiving. Every ticket is a little receipt for a decision. You can’t just tap and forget. Paper has a grip.”
A catalog, a scale, and a neighbor with concerns
According to Krüger’s handwritten inventory—kept in a green folder labeled “FARES (PRIMARY)”—the collection includes 1,903 short-trip tickets, 6,112 AB tickets, 98 BC extension tickets he calls “the dangerous ones,” and a small subset of “romantic transfers” featuring visible creases from being held in a warm palm.
At 11:13 a.m., the building’s property manager, Anja Vollmer of Hausverwaltung Spree & Stein GmbH, arrived with a luggage scale and a clipboard. Vollmer said she was responding to complaints that Krüger’s floorboards “sound like a library shelf during an earthquake.”
“We are not judging the hobby,” Vollmer said in the courtyard, standing beside a dolly carrying what she described as “a surprisingly dense stack of nostalgia.” “But when passion starts pressing downward, we have to ask practical questions. There are load limits.”
Neighbor Olaf Wendt, 58, who lives directly below Krüger, said he first noticed the issue on March 2 at 10:06 p.m., when “a gentle rain of paper dust” allegedly drifted from his ceiling light fixture.
“I respect a collector,” Wendt said. “But this is starting to feel like a surveillance tower made of fares. You step into the stairwell and you can feel the tickets watching you.”
BVG asked to verify “authenticity and vibe”
By Wednesday at 2:25 p.m., Krüger had emailed photos of his collection to a BVG customer service address, requesting formal recognition and, if possible, “a small stamp to confirm the narrative.”
BVG spokesperson Maren Laskowski said by phone that the agency does not provide certificates for used tickets, “even when the collector has arranged them by line, season, and emotional temperature.”
“Tickets are valid for travel, not for meaning,” Laskowski said. Still, she confirmed BVG staff at Alexanderplatz station had been approached Monday at 5:18 p.m. by a man carrying a binder of tickets “for a quick inspection,” which she described as “hard to swallow during peak commuter flow.”
Krüger said the collection began on Sept. 14, 2016, after he found a slightly damp ticket near the platform edge at Eberswalder Straße and kept it “like a pressed flower.” Over time, he started picking up discarded tickets, then buying extras “to complete the arc.”
“It’s a map of the city, but the map is the waste,” he said. “If you walk long enough, the streets start arranging you back.”
Consequences: basement diplomacy and a scheduled counting
A tenants’ meeting has been set for Friday at 7:00 p.m. in the building’s laundry room to discuss whether Krüger’s storage cage may contain “paper goods of unusual density.” Vollmer said the discussion is expected to be brief but acknowledged it could face “stiff resistance” from residents who want the basement reserved for bicycles, strollers, and “normal secrets.”
Krüger, for his part, has agreed to a supervised recount on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. with two witnesses and a kitchen timer, insisting the process must be “slow enough to be true.”
“If they make me get rid of them, fine,” he said, tapping the top of a shoe box marked “U8—NIGHT STUDIES.” “But they should at least let me say goodbye properly. You can’t just throw away that many entrances.”