The Deets

Shoefiti is a worldwide phenomenon. We spotted shoes hanging from powerlines near the airport in Montevideo, and in the La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Thanks to Katie for the photo help.

I can count on my friend Dusty Olson checking in from time to time from some cool location with a quick voicemail.

For example, I mentioned on here a little over a week ago that I was quoted in a newspaper in Newark about Shoefiti. It turns out that the Newark story received quite a bit of syndication nationally, including San Diego and Seattle.

Guess who happened to be reading the Seattle Times earlier this week? My friend Dusty.

He left me an awesome voicemail explaining how I’ve hit the big time now that I’m a nationally recognized expert on the subject of shoes hanging from powerlines.

I’ve set his voicemail to a slideshow of photos of Dusty at various ultramarathons around the country, including the Western States 100 where he paces our friend Scott Jurek to victory in that grueling 100 mile trail run.

Click To Play

For those of you who follow shoefiti as closely as I do (LOL) it should come as no surprise to hear that Newark, New Jersey has a shoefiti problem on their hands.

I had a chance to discuss New Jersey’s shoefiti issue with a reporter from The Star Ledger last week for an article that ran today. One of the things I tried to get across was that it doesn’t really matter why they ended up on the lines of people’s perception is negative:

Shoe mystery hangs over city - NJ.com

What counts most is how the community feels about the shoes.

“If the perception is people associate it with blight, it’s got to come down because people will feel less safe,” said Kohler.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced with getting shoes removed from powerlines locally has been dealing with Xcel Energy. As I understand it, they have a policy of “driver’s discretion” for dealing with items on powerlines that aren’t interfering with power. While that’s understandable, they way it’s applied is to remove shoes from lines in the nicer areas of Minneapolis while leaving them up in the tougher neighborhoods, thus inadvertently contributing to the blight of areas that need the most help.

Swap out Xcel Energy for Verizon to see how this applies in Newark:

Verizon doesn’t take the shoe issue as seriously as Waldrop. Rich Young, a spokesman, said the shoes are taken down if they are causing problems with the network, if they get a complaint or if a technician just happens to be working near an airborne pair.

“In general we do not send out technicians on patrol looking for sneakers,” said Young. “This is a problem all over the state. We would need a small army of technicians dedicated to shoe removal.”

The old, “Sure, they’re our lines, but we’re not responsible for them.” routine.

Shoefiti was covered by Charlottesville, Virginia’s Daily Progress newspaper:

‘Shoefiti’ phenomenon has no clear answer

Ed Kohler is the creator of shoefiti.com, a Web site that tracks shoefiti across the country and world. He says he created the term in 2005, after noticing shoes on utility lines near his Minneapolis, Minn., home.

Nobody’s ever been able to scientifically identify a reason for the dangling shoes, but they pop up in several different countries and in cities of all sizes, Kohler said.

The real reasons could depend on where the shoes are found, he said.

“On the lighter side of things, if it’s near a high school, it’s probably a case of hazing or something like that,” said Kohler, 33. “If it’s near a military base, it might be something where people finish their time and they’re celebrating.”

Jeff and Sarah may remember when I did this interview while stepping out from the Riverview Wine Bar for a few minutes on May 25th.

Very cool:

Word Spy - shoefiti

shoefiti (shoo.FEE.tee) n. One or more pairs of shoes tied together by the laces and dangling from a powerline or other type of overhead wire.

And they even called shoefiti.com “oddly compelling,” which pretty much nails it.

Shoefiti.com got some press in the Lawrence Journal-World today.

Laces wild | LJWorld.com

That’s the same question Ed Kohler’s been pondering seriously for three years.

After he bought his first home in Minneapolis in 2004, he started noticing that a lot of shoes seemed to be popping up on power lines in his neighborhood.

Long story short, he became fascinated with why this happens. He coined the term “shoefiti,” thinking that the shoes, when left unremoved, resembled graffiti that isn’t painted over.

He even started a Web site, www.shoefiti.com, which tracks shoe/power line news.

Kohler isn’t surprised the shoes show up on Lawrence power lines. The town he’s seen with the most shoefiti is Bloomington, Ind., another college town.

I did the interview by email, and think this is the way to go on future interviews. It’s easier to get quoted accurately and you have more time to think our your responses.

IMG_0097.JPG, originally uploaded by edkohler.

Jeremy snapped this shot in Sunnyvale, CA just after sunset. Don’t worry, we weren’t hanging out waiting for perfect light.

Shoefiti.com is undergoing some serious upgrades. I’m shooting for having it back online by the end of the year.

BTW, it looks like the term I coined is catching on. People are describing shoes on power lines loaded to Flickr as Shoefiti these days.