Get this and get it straight.

Crime is a suckers road,

and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize.

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account.

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.

Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and welcome to Down These Mean Streets, a weekly trip back to the Golden Age of

Radio to rub elbows with its detectives and crime fighters. This week our trip takes us

to Broadway, the beat of Detective Danny Clover. The gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world was the setting for one of

radio's most unusual police procedurals.

Broadway is my beat featured Runyonesque characters, comedy and tragedy, and lyrical narration from a cop with the soul of a poet.

Danny Clover was that cop, a man who wore his badge and his gun along with his heart on his sleeve.

Larry Thor was perfect as a detective without equal on radio.

Clover didn't have the Just the Facts Ratitat-tat narration of Dragnet,

nor did he have the glib one-liners of Sam's Spade or Richard Diamond.

Surrounding this unique protagonist

were some of radio's most colorful and unusual characters.

Cops, like the Mother Hen, Sergeant Tartaglia, or the world weary Sergeant Mugavin,

as well as men and women from all walks of life who Clover encountered each week in his investigations.

The world of Danny Clover's Broadway was meticulously

...