Hello No Man's Man's Land listeners. I'm Audrey Gellman, CEO and co-founder of the

Wing. Over at my house, we're counting down the days until we can watch the second season of the Emmy Award winning show the marvelous Mrs. Measol on December 5th.

I mean how could we not love a show about a 1950s housewife breaking all the rules of polite society to pursue a comedy career.

Thanks to Amazon Prime video for their support and welcome to episode one of No Man's Land. Stephanie St. Clair needed no introduction in 1920s Harlem. Everyone knew the Queen.

She held it down, you know. Harlem, everyone knew the Queen.

She held it down, you know, and every, I mean,

there's very few women I can think of in Harlem,

who's held in the same esteem as Madam Queen.

That's Harlem Raider Karen Knonus Miller describing a true gang star.

Stephanie St. Clair, aka Queenie, the most successful woman to run an illegal lottery in Harlem ever.

In the world of underground gambling, the numbers game was big business.

And there were over a hundred numbers bankers in Harlem, nearly all of the men, and yet

Queenie was at the top of the game.

Madam was in charge.

She never considered anybody but her.

But in the early 1930s, there was a problem.

Everybody was afraid of Judge Schultz, you know.

Everybody except our lady lady the queen.

Dutch Schultz was a notorious Jewish mobster who'd made a fortune as a bootlegger during

prohibition and by the end of it he was up there with the five families

powerful and violent enough for Jay Edgar Hoover the head of the FBI to declare him public enemy

number one.

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