Wednesday, October 13, 2010

"Shoefiti" On Wilson




We spotted these tennis shoes hanging on an electrical wire outside the Wilson Men's Hotel at Wilson & Clifton.
What is the reasoning behind this?
Here is one idea.

9 comments:

  1. For some reason-you could see that all over in uptown for years-I always wondered why someone does that also.

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  2. I've heard they are markers for drug dealers. The color of the shoes tell what 'merchandise' is available. I'm not sure this is always accurate.

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  3. Shoes hanging from a power line can mean several things. It can be a way of marking gang turf or an area where a gang murder occurred. It can also signify an area where drugs are for sale (crack house etc). I'm sure there are more...

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  4. They're markers. Dealers can't really put a neon sign in a window advertising their where-a-bouts. You can find shoes on electric lines in most ghettos.

    We can build ten thousand condos in Uptown and it will only still look like putting lipstick on a pile of horseshit. The crumbling El, the alcoholics, the P stones, the stench of urine, the loiterers, Wilson Men's Hotel, beauty and wig shops...none of it is going anywhere. Only a fearless political tyrant could muscle Uptown back to a state of respectability. Hmmm...maybe Daly will throw his hat into the 46th race. If he can plow down Meigs Field, whose says he couldn't "plow" down the bottom feeders of Uptown?

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  5. Years ago, a cop friend told me that this is something gang members do following a jumping to warn other that they are in "gang territory."

    I don't know how much weight this holds, but for the areas I've seen this "shoefiti," it sounds probable.

    I personally can't imagine how sucky it would be to get jumped AND have your shoes taken.

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  6. I don't think it means anything, just bored kids.

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  7. When I was between the ages of 10 and probably 16 in the late 70s and early 1980s this is what I and most of my middle-class college bound friends did with our smelly old sneaks. We didn't deal drugs and we didn't mark turf. It was fun and kinda of cool to see how many months or even years an old pair of shoes would stay aloft. I have it on good authority from some elementary school nephews of mine that this practice carries on to this day.

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  8. That "gang marker" stuff is an old urban legend that goes back decades, but also a silly one. Kids do this in cities all over the country, and it means nothing. My friends and I would do this with old sneakers for fun when we were in junior high in the 1980s. And this was a very safe, yet urban neighborhood with no obvious signs of drug dealing to be found. You also see it a lot in college towns, since it's also a prank you can play on others.

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  9. in philadelphia, it definitely means that drugs are for sale here. not sure about chicago.

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