Dangling Shoes Not Just Street Decorations
An e-mail sent out to the third district police listserv has touched off quite a debate pitting neighbor against neighbor, resident against cop! Everyone wants to prove their street cred. The subject: What is the meaning of those random pairs of shoes that dangle from trees and telephone wires around the city? Here are a few recorded conjectures:
-The marking gang territory theory: "It's gangs or crews marking territory, similar to graffiti, using sneakers, usually taken from a rival gang member and strung up on light posts or telephone poles. It is important that they be removed quickly...Usually, a certain style of shoe will identify what organization one is affiliated with."
-The street memorial theory: "[Kids hang] shoes on telephone lines to honor the memory of a deceased friend who they held in high regard. Not every little neighborhood kid is in a gang or a crew."
-The identifying drug houses theory: "And in some realms it's meant as a sign that drugs are available at whatever house they were in front of..."
2:22 pm
This was the most informative thing I've ever read in the City Paper.
3:06 pm
I grew up in Brooklyn, and my parents always warned me that they signified open-air drug markets
3:27 pm
I don't know if he coined it himself or picked it up hanging out on the corner, but Richard Price in "Clockers" referred to said shoes as "sneakerfruit." I love that.
3:29 pm
Correction: Price wrote that line in "Samaritan."
3:40 pm
When I was in college, the unsubstantiated story was always: Finding your shoes hanging from a tree branch meant you had a) passed out in the frat house and b) had sex with one of the brothers. If you were lucky, b) came before a).
4:09 pm
city paper covered this way back when, in a story called Treed Off from the April 21, 2000 issue. it's in the archives.
as amanda hess surmises, back then dangling shoes could be taken as evidence of a gang-bang, but not gang-bangers...well, not the kind of gang-bangers the fear-mongering folks from 3D are hyping, anyway...
7:09 pm
Dont forget the theory that it's funny to see your friend's shoes dangling from telephone lines.