The True Story Behind The Infamous Trashed Nike "Pigeon" Dunks

If you've spent a fair amount of time on Niketalk over the years, you may have seen this legendary picture of a group of friends absolutely destroying a pair of "Pigeon" SB Dunks by drowning it in food and all sorts of condiments. Now, we're getting a first-hand account of what actually went down that day.

"My friends and I were eating at Juanita's, a Mexican place on Rivington Street where a couple of our friends worked, so we basically hung out there every Sunday drinking margaritas and beers," said a friend of the owner of the "Pigeon" Dunks, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The crew continued until the restaurant stopped serving food, at which point they took the party to the streets with take-out chicken fingers and dollar store lawn chairs.

Although her memories have muddied over time, Alice* recalls it all started with a few drips of candle wax. "I'm not entirely sure how we got to playing with the shoes, I think some wax from a candle spilled on them, but they ended up on the table, and we started [destroying them] by adding food and condiments and limes from our drinks," Alice recalled.

"We had a couple of graf' dudes in the group so that's when the markers came out. Afterwards, we went across the street to Alife Rivington Club and got him a new pair of kicks. I'm pretty sure he kept the Pigeons in the box like that for awhile but not sure what happened to them," Alice said.

For the most part, this sounds like some innocent fun and games amongst good friends, but how did the owner come up on that pair in the first place?

According to Alice, the original owner was close with several Staple employees and had mutual friends with Jeff Staple himself. These connections allowed him to score a pair for retail while other 'heads barely made it out of the release alive.

And that's how Internet sneaker legends are made.

*Alice is an alias and not the source's real name.