"Once upon a time Broadway was just another street. In Gangsters & Gold Diggers, Jerome Charyn transports readers back to a swaggering, golden era in American life - the Roaring Twenties - when Broadway suddenly exploded into Broadway." Damon Runyon was the first chronicler of the Big Street. He created the myth of Broadway, invented the "slanguage." The Ziegfeld Follies became its most important institution - everybody, including Zelda Fitzgerald, wanted to be a Follies Girl. Then came Lindy's, a delicatessen and hangout for actors, bootleggers, singers, hustlers, chorus girls, and celebrities. Charyn looks at the men and women who helped make Broadway the most glamorous place on the planet, from Mae West to Fanny Brice, Legs Diamond to Irving Berlin, Louise Brooks to William Randolph Hearst, Scott Fitzgerald to Arnold Rothstein and the Gatsby-like gangster Owen Madden, and many more.