It was only a few years ago that I learned that shoes hanging on a telephone wire mean that a drug dealer (usually crack dealer) operates near that intersection. I was naive and just thought it was neat before that.

So, I was walking to the Williamsburg Bridge the other day (I walk over it a lot now as part of my being healthier plan, and my enjoying NYC more plan) and I went right by where I used to live with Mike when I saw this:

There appear to be 9 pairs of shoes hanging from those wires. Ummm... does that mean that 9 seperate crack dealers work this corner? Or are they concerned that their patrons are going to miss just one pair of shoes so they've made it as obvious as possible? I can't imagine the police have failed to notice. It's very perplexing. This is only like 8 blocks from my current apartment, which is a bit troubling.

How do they take the shoes down when they close up shop and move to a different spot? I would be a terrible drug addict or drug dealer because I'd spend more time on these sorts of questions than on the doing/selling of drugs.

(for more on this phenomenon, this is from wikipedia: Some say that shoes hanging from the wires advertise a local crack house where crack cocaine is used and sold (in which case the shoes are sometimes referred to as "Crack Tennies"). It can also relate to a place where Heroin is sold to symbolize the fact that once you take Heroin you can never 'leave': a reference to the addictive nature of the drug. Others claim that the shoes so thrown commemorate a gang-related murder, or the death of a gang member, or as a way of marking gang turf.[1] A newsletter from the mayor of Los Angeles, California cites fears of many Los Angeles residents that "these shoes indicate sites at which drugs are sold or worse yet, gang turf," and that city and utility employees had launched a program to remove the shoes.[2] )