21^st Precinct
½ hour police detective episodes

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"Twenty-first Precinct. It's just lines on a map of the City of New York. Most of the 173,000 people wedged into the nine-tenths of a square mile between Fifth Avenue and the East River wouldn't know, if you asked them, that they lived or worked in the Twenty First. Whether they know it or not, the security of their persons, their homes, and their property is the job of the men of the The Twenty-first. 160 patrolmen, eleven sergeants and four lieutenants of whom I'm the boss. My name is Kennelly. Frank Kennelly. I'm Captain in Command of the 21st."

So began each episode of "21 Precinct." This ½ hour show was a behind the scenes realistic approach to police work. In the wake of the success of Dragnet, the stumbling and bumbling police sergeant was falling out of favor with audiences and a more realistic, hard working, dedicated detective took his place. The show was written by Stanley Niss, a typical story would put the listener into the action immediately, using 2^nd person narrative describing an incoming phone call, setting up the episode's premise.

Actual cases would be used as the basis for stories. It was mentioned in each episode's closing by the announcer that, "21^st Precinct is presented with the official cooperation of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association an organization of more than 20,000 members of the Police Department, City of New York." The Captain was the primary character and also acted as the narrator. Three actors played the Captain's role: Everett Sloane as Kennelly, James Gregory as Cronin, and Les Damon as Keough. Supporting roles were played by Ken Lynch as Lt. Matt King and Harold Stone as Sgt. Waters, and Santos Ortega was Lt. Patrick "Red" Gorman. One nice touch, when the Captain was replaced with a different actor, the reason given was that the Captain had been promoted above the Precinct level.

All of our Old Time Radio Programs are in MP3 format. You can play them on your computer, you can transfer them to MP3 players (like the IPod), but, by and large, you cannot play them on stereos, walkmen, or car radios.

The sound quality of Old Time Radio Programs can vary greatly. Some episodes are excellent, others you have to turn up the volume a little and ignore the static. All of the episodes can be listened to and enjoyed. You can listen to our free samples to get a feel for how the programs sound.

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