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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!

Nov 27, 2016

It’s our 200th episode of old time radio cops, private eyes, and crime-solvers, and we’re celebrating with one of the era’s best actors and characters – Bob Bailey as Johnny Dollar. “The man with the action-packed expense account” is on the job in an extra-large, king-sized nine-part mystery. We’ll hear...


Nov 23, 2016

In a special bonus episode, just in time for Thanksgiving, we’ll hear ace cameraman Casey, Crime Photographer in a Turkey Day mystery. Can Casey save a reformed safecracker from being coerced into heist and finish in time for dinner with his girl Friday Ann Williams? Find out with Staats Cotsworth as Casey, with Jan...


Nov 20, 2016

Howard Duff made the role of Sam Spade his own, bringing the San Francisco shamus to radio life from 1946 until 1950. With a blend of wry humor and hard-boiled atmosphere, The Adventures of Sam Spade holds up as one of the all-time great radio detective shows, thanks in no small part to the man in the title role. In...


Nov 13, 2016

We doff our cap to Dick Powell in this birthday celebration of the crooner who reinvented himself as a tough film noir leading man. First, he’s private investigator Richard Rogue in “Murder at Minden” from Rogue’s Gallery (originally aired on Mutual on January 3, 1946). Then, it’s a pair of mysteries starring...


Nov 6, 2016

The thrilling and dangerous wartime exploits of the OSS – Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA – were dramatized on radio in Cloak and Dagger. Tales of adventures behind enemy lines in Europe and the Pacific came to life with stories of civilians, soldiers, and spies on daring missions – knowing...