Ten years ago this month, The Wire premiered on HBO and… almost nobody cared. The Baltimore saga of cops and dealers, junkies and politicians, poverty and hope, polarized critics, was ignored by the Emmys, constantly struggled for ratings and faced cancellation more than once. But it also inspired a future President, created a bona fide American folk hero, and helped launch the current “Golden Age” of television. Now for the first time ever, the creators, writers, cast and crew recall the making of an American classic.

In the mid-1980s David Simon, a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, met Ed Burns, a homicide detective in the midst of a major case involving local drug kingpin and folk hero Melvin Williams. Key evidence in the case was gathered using wiretap surveillance.