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Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, a weekly trip back to the Golden Age of Radio where we rub elbows with the era's greatest private eyes, cops, and crime-fighters. Since 2013, I've been podcasting everything from cozy mysteries to police procedurals, spotlighting characters ranging from hard boiled gumshoes to amateur sleuths. 

Be sure to tune in each Sunday for adventures of a radio detective and the behind-the-scenes stories of their shows. Join me as we spend time with Sam Spade, Johnny Dollar, Sgt. Joe Friday, and more!

Apr 19, 2026

Our month of Jack Webb continues with his most unusual crime drama - Pete Kelly’s Blues, a show that incorporated Webb’s love of jazz into its weekly mysteries. Kelly played cornet in a combo at a Kansas City speakeasy during Prohibition, and each episode featured vocal and instrumental musical numbers. Though it...


Apr 12, 2026

Our Jack Webb series continues this week with Jeff Regan, Investigator - another stint as a hard-boiled gumshoe before he picked up Joe Friday’s badge on Dragnet. Regan was the long-suffering operative of Anthony J. Lyon’s International Detective Bureau, and “the Lyon’s eye” was always thrown into whatever...


Apr 8, 2026

Our month-long salute to Jack Webb continues with his signature series and my five favorite radio episodes of Dragnet. We’ll join Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday as he keeps the streets of Los Angeles safe from crooks of all stripes. We’ll hear “The Big Bomb” (originally aired on NBC on July 13, 1950); “The Big...


Apr 5, 2026

We kick off a new month-long series saluting the great Jack Webb in honor of his April 2nd birthday, and we’re starting with Pat Novak for Hire - his ultra-hard boiled series that put him on the map. Novak never looked for trouble but always found it on the San Francisco waterfront, and we’ll hear him try to keep...


Apr 2, 2026

Easter is almost here, and we’ve got a pair of old time radio mysteries with a twist on the bunny and his basket. Lon Clark stars as Nick Carter, Master Detective in “The Case of the Chemical Chickens,” a story of explosive eggs (originally aired on Mutual on April 13, 1947). Then, a rabbit farm that ends up the...