Metropolitan Man-about-Broadway

[vkhu]

At the moment I caught him he had spread wide open the inner page of the Daily Metropolitan, a sheet devoted almost exclusively to sports and the amusement fields.

[...]

"It is hinted to the Metropolitan Man-about-Broadway, by those in a position to know but who cannot yet be quoted, that Fortune Features is about to absorb a number of the largest competing companies."

The newspaper's name is Daily Metropolitan, but why is it referred to as Metropolitan Man-about-Broadway?

Source: The Film Mystery by Arthur B. Reeve

 

[lingobingo]

The capitalisation suggests that Man-about-Broadway is a regular gossip feature in that paper.

The term is adapted from the phrase man about town – an old-fashioned idiom meaning “a fashionable male socialite” (Oxford’s definition).

 

[kentix]

The capitalisation suggests that Man-about-Broadway is a regular gossip feature in that paper.

To me it also suggests that it's a specific person employed by the newspaper who writes that column. He's referring to what his secret sources told him, perhaps when he was out and about at a party or other social function.

 

[lingobingo]

Agreed. No gossip columnist would last long if they revealed their sources without permission!