Todd writes “One of my favourite things about living in Vancouver is the wealth of shoes hanging from wires around town.” I keep telling Todd that he should start a site dedicated to photos of shoes on wires. Then he could seek out explanations for the heck the shoes end up there. Every time I walk down the alley behind my building I note the clipboard suspended from an overhanging wire. It must have taken quite a feat of dexterity to get it to hang like that.
Todd also references some Arizonians irate over an eighteen-shoe wire in Yuma. Of course, one can’t mention shoes on wires without mentioning this very fine, very prescient movie.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
OK, that Yuma article you linked uses the term “catty-cornered”.
Now I’ve heard of “cater-cornered” and “kitty-corner”, but “catty-cornered”?!?!
ME-OWWWW!
Oh for the love of Pete.
Can’t we just all agree on one form and stick with that?
We have at least 5 pairs hanging from the wire out fron of our appartment building…although not surprising seeing as we live in the “projects” of North Van.
I always figured that seeing as there is a bar across the street, people would steal their buddy’s shoes off their feet, run outside and huck ’em up on the wire…for fun of course. There is a nice pair of hiking boots, I have contemplated trying to get down…
– A
Shoes on wires. Vancouver is a real-life Pleasantville???
those shoes denote different drug areas. So the dealers know not to sell in another dealer’s area. At least that’s what I’ve heard so far…
Ask a UBC engineer what the shoes are about and see if they change the subject. Rumor has it these items are the result of some local frosh or initiation rite.
Various urban legends sites discuss the sneaker situation. I’ve heard from a few people that they mark places to buy drugs. The alley near me has some shoes on wires and a drug dealer is underneath them every night. Of course, there are drug dealers and hanging sneakers all over downtown, so this may be mere coincidence. Can anyone else verify drug dealing that takes place under hanging sneakers? Thus we’d have two merely anecdotal claims….
I don’t place any credence in the drug-dealer hypothesis. For one thing, Snopes has an entry that lists a number of claims about the phenomenon.
For another, the wire outside my ex-wife’s place in Campbell River was festooned with ten or twelve pairs, which should have indicated a veritable supermarket o’ drugs. However, on closer inspection a more prosaic explanation was found: there’s a thrift store, with its unlocked donation box, right across the street. Model citizens and captains of industry were sneaking into the donation box at night and shoe-hurling.
My personal take? It’s a genuine meme, a useless and quirky sort of viral idea that has traveled throughout North America.