Shoe Toss : ‘Game’ of Throwing Sneakers Onto Wires Frustrates Highland Park Street Residents

A strange sight has remained unaltered for more than four months on a short Highland Park street that residents sarcastically call Shoe Village.

Dozens of tennis shoes--old and new, expensive and cheap--hang by their laces from utility wires crisscrossing Sycamore Park Drive, a modest, ethnically mixed one-block, dead-end street just east of the Pasadena Freeway.

Some people say they throw old shoes up there because they get a kick out of it.

“All of my friends,” said Sean Bumcrot, 17, “whenever their shoes get old, they hang ‘em up there instead of throwing them in the trash.” Bumcrot said he has hung two of his own pairs on the wires, the blue-and-yellow Nikes and the old white ones with the tongues hanging out.

But there is an ugly side to it. Some shoes have been stolen from the front of houses of Asian immigrants who removed them before going inside.

Family Victimized

Ranee Jitdanai, a Thai immigrant and Buddhist who lives on Sycamore Park Drive, is one of the victims.

Jitdanai said her family’s shoes have been stolen three times this year, 24 pairs in all. “And my children buy Reebok, expensive shoes. Why can’t they buy K mart shoes?” she asked, smiling sheepishly.

For 17 years, since arriving in the United States, Jitdanai, her husband and their two sons had left their shoes on a shelf in the porch before entering their house, immaculately decorated with Thai dolls and sculptures.

Now they put them in a cardboard box in a corner of the living room, leaving only a few old pairs worn for gardening on the porch.

Bumcrot knows all about the thefts. His friends do it, although not him, he said. “That’s why they stopped leaving their shoes outside,” he said matter-of-factly, referring to the Jitdanais. The thieves keep good shoes and heave worn-out ones onto the wires, he said.

Stole From Other Families

His friends, Bumcrot said, also stole shoes from two other families that live in the block, immigrants from Korea and China. Both families refused comment.

Jitdanai, a nurse at Sycamore Hospital who declined to be photographed, said: “I don’t want any enemies. I have two children in high school.”

That same fear has kept the friendly, soft-spoken woman from filing complaints with police even though, in addition to the shoe thefts, someone recently smashed her car’s windshield, she said.

Some neighbors are baffled at the apparent lack of interest from public officials. They complain that the shoes are unsightly, create a hazard by overloading the cable and signal the urban decay that attracts undesirables.

“I don’t know why they do it,” Maria Cervantes, one of the neighbors, said of the shoe-throwers. “It looks ugly. I tell the boys not to do it again, but what else can I do? The policeman walks by and doesn’t care.”

Another neighbor, who requested anonymity, said he contacted the Department of Water and Power, Pacific Bell and field representatives of Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre four months ago.

Remove 30 Pairs

A utility crew promptly removed about 30 pairs of shoes from a power line, neighbors said. But Pacific Bell never responded, the man said, and neither did the councilman’s office.

The man said he first contacted Alatorre’s field representative, Shirley Minser, four months ago and made a follow-up call to Alatorre Deputy Rosa Morales a week ago.

Minser said she did not recall receiving a complaint. “I’m sorry I didn’t act on it, but I don’t even remember it,” she said.

Morales, though, acknowledged receiving the call. “I’m trying to find out what phone company to contact,” she said. “Is it Southwest or Pacific Bell?”

Pacific Bell spokeswoman Charlene Baldwin said she was unaware of any previous complaints, but she promised that a company crew would remove the shoes the next day “as a service to the community.”

Police Lt. Tom Chiarenza said Monday that he was unaware of the problem.

“I’ve heard of kids doing it in other communities,” he said. “It’s not unusual. But it’s the first I’ve heard about it in Highland Park.” He said police are not responsible for removing the shoes.