Shoeless Joe and the Attempted Pyramid

I was stopped at a red light, facing east on Poplar Street at 29th Street this morning, when I saw a bizarre sight:

At first, I thought they were bike tubes, flattened and/or discarded. But those are definitely someone's shoes, and they appeared to be delicately placed upside down in the crosswalk near the edge of the road.

There are a lot of attempted explanations for shoes hanging from power lines, but I have no idea what this could mean. And one more thing: why are they facing different directions?

I saw this while I was in the midst of delivering 23 bags for 1 client (Outward Bound). It took three trips and two hours, but required absolutely zero gasoline (saying that never gets old). When I was finished, I wanted to stack them all into a pyramid, but laundry doesn't stack as nicely as Legos:

Close enough. It was also a beautiful day to work on my Farmer's Tan. Mission accomplished...