The Secret History of Frisco podcast is a cinematic journey through the fascinating history of San Francisco when the city was still wide open, 1934-1953, the last vestiges of the Wild Wild West. 

The city’s nightlife was a swirling constellation of nightclubs, saloons, restaurants, gambling joints and bordellos. Its reputation as the cool grey city of love spread far across the globe. 

In the Thirties, three entities controlled the city: the McDonough Brothers through their bail bonds company, Frank Lanza, West Coast representative of the East Coast Mob who owned Fisherman’s Wharf, and The San Francisco Police Department, which skimmed the equivalent of $20M in 1937 alone from the myriad dens of wickedness spread across the city.

In the forties, the post-war era, San Francisco Examiner Editor Bill Wren ran the town. His knight errant columnist, Freddie Francisco, ex-con, embezzler, thief, assisted ably and ran his own shakedown racket.

Wren’s nemesis the City’s Grand Viceroy of Sin, Bones Remmer, ran the Tenderloin, the city of Emeryville, and other points south and east. Jimmie Tarantino, anti-communist trash tabloid publisher, extortionist, and pal of Mickey Cohen and Frank Sinatra worked for Remmer. Jack Ruby dealt cards in one of Remmer’s gambling joints before heading to Dallas.

There are so many more characters and stories, too many to list here. 

The Secret History of Frisco’s ambition is to bring alive these tales—vice, politics, culture, journalism, movies, romance, literature—from the last good time years when Frisco was still the wide-open city that seduced the world. 

The Secret History of Frisco podcast. http://thesecrethistoryoffrisco.com 

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There are currently ten episodes on the website and it is available anywhere fine podcasts are served, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc.