The speakeasy's name derived from the androgynous title character of a comic strip popular at the time,[6] and this namesake communicated that the venue catered to clientele of all sexual persuasions, including polysexual and homosexual patrons.[7] Due to this inclusivity, the secluded venue served as a clandestine rendezvous spot for Washington, D.C.'s gay community to meet without fear of exposure.[8] The speakeasy's clientele were known for their unapologetic embrace of free love ("unrestricted impulse").[9] By 1922, The Krazy Kat had become infamous, and municipal authorities publicly identified the venue as "a disorderly house," a euphemism for a brothel.[1]
Perhaps due to its infamous reputation, The Krazy Kat became one of the most vogue locations for Washington, D.C.'s artists, bohemians, flappers, and cultural elites to mingle.[10] Contemporary sources alleged that, during the second term of President Woodrow Wilson's administration (1916–1921), the establishment's habitués included federal government employees as well as possibly members of the U.S. Congress.[11]
After existing for over half-a-decade and surviving a number of police raids,[12] the speakeasy presumably closed by 1926 when Cleon Throckmorton and his first wife Kathryn "Kat" Mullin relocated to Greenwich Village in New York City.[13] Today, the speakeasy's neighborhood is the site of The Green Lantern, a D.C. gay bar.[14]
Location
A 23-year-old Cleon "Throck" Throckmorton, 18-year-old Kathryn "Kat" Mullin,[a] and a friend wearing a tricorne hat relax in the club's tree house cafe on July 15, 1921. No photograph of the club's indoor area—the speakeasy itself—is known to exist.
The back-alley entrance door bore a rectangular hand-painted sign reading "Syne of Ye Krazy Kat" [sic] and depicted a black cat resembling Krazy Kat being hit by a brick.[17] A chalk-inscribed message adorned the top of the door with a warning: "All soap abandon ye who enter here".[18] The club advertised its hours as "9 p.m. to 12:30".[10]
Upon entering via the alleyway, speakeasy patrons crossed a lumber-littered room and ascended a narrow winding staircase to reach "a smoke-filled, dimly lighted room that was fairly well filled with laughing, noisy people, who seemed to be having just the best time in the world, with no one to see and no one to care who saw".[19]
The club's interior dining area occupied the second-floor of an old livestock stable.[19] Rife with cobwebs, the indoor dining area featured "futurist pictures on the walls, small wooden tables, rickety chairs, and candles for light".[20] No photograph of the interior is known to exist. The club's premises included both an indoor dance floor and an outdoor courtyard for al fresco dining and art exhibitions. The courtyard had a small rustic tree house cafe constructed from wooden planks and accessible via a wooden twelve-step ladder.[21]
The club was named after the androgynous cartoon character Krazy Kat.[22] This namesake signaled to gay persons in Washington, D.C, that the venue was sexually inclusive.[23]
On March 3, 1917, the controversial passage of the Sheppard Bone-Dry Act led to the closure of 267 barrooms and nearly 90 wholesale establishments in the District of Columbia.[24] Over 2,000 employees in D.C. barrooms and wholesale establishments were thrown out of work, and the district lost nearly half-a-million dollars per year in tax revenue.[24] In the wake of this draconian bill, underground speakeasies such as The Krazy Kat and others flourished.[25]
Circa 1919, 21-year-old artist Cleon Throckmorton (1897–1965) founded The Krazy Kat after he had completed his engineering studies at George Washington University.[26] By day, Throckmorton was an associate of the drama department at Howard University, a historically black college.[27] By night, he ran the raucous speakeasy in the Latin Quarter.[28] He shared ownership of the venue with co-proprietors John Don Allen and John Stiffen.[1] A pre-Raphaeliteimpressionist, Throckmorton believed that artists should pursue their vocation day and night by surrounding themselves with appropriate settings that inspired creativity, and the venue fulfilled that purpose.[10]
Due to its courtyard and tree house, the establishment became an idyllic haunt for artists, bohemians, flappers, and other free-wheeling "young moderns" of the Jazz Age.[9] One frequent habitué was Throckmorton's muse, 18-year-old Kathryn Marie "Kat" Mullin[a] (1902–1994), whom he later married in January 1922.[31] A model, sketch artist and later costume designer, "Kat" Mullin was widely known for her radio and stage performances as a ukulele player and singer with the Crandall Saturday Nighters.[32] For her stage performances, she was billed as "The Girl With the Million Dollar Legs."[33] When not performing on stage or radio, she was a renowned expert in women's saber fencing and gave public exhibitions.[34]
Cultural peak
By 1920, the speakeasy was renowned for its riotous performances of hot jazz music which occasionally degenerated into violence and mayhem.[35]The Washington Post crime reporter described The Krazy Kat as being "something like a Greenwich Villagecoffee house", featuring gaudy pictures painted by futurists and impressionists.[36] According to the Washington City Paper, The Kat clandestinely functioned as an underground nexus for Washington, D.C.'s gay community.[14]Jeb Alexander, a gay Washington, D.C. resident, described the transgressive venue in his personal diary as a "bohemian joint in an old stable up near Thomas Circle... [a gathering place for] artists, musicians, atheists [and] professors".[37] Writer Victor Flambeau described the club in a February 1922 article for The Washington Times:
"A hidden haunt where one might find in comradeship those divine, congenial devils, art inspired and mad, no doubt, who have renounced the commercial world with its seductive wealth, to gain in solitude or blithe companionship another kind of wealth and fame in self-expression.... When the hours wane, and the candles burn low, and the big fire glows, and over the cigarettes and the cider, the coffee and sandwiches, what do they chat of, these men and women, boys and girls, the would-be writers, painters, poets of tomorrow?"[9]
Cleon Throckmorton (middle), Kathryn Mullin (far right), Inez Hogan (top left) and others in the tree house cafe. The flappers wear the rolled stockings and low heels typical of the era's fashion.[38]
Over time, The Krazy Kat speakeasy became one of the most vogue locations for Washington's intelligentsia and aesthetes to congregate.[10] According to Throckmorton, the avant-garde venue "proved not only a club for artists, but a source of supply for musicians and playwrights", and he claimed that several plays were written on its premises.[39] Flambeau noted that, by 1922, "in imitation of the Krazy Kat, other bohemian restaurants sprang up in Washington to supply the demand" such as the Silver Sea Horse and Carcassonne in Georgetown.[40]
During its tumultuous half-decade existence, municipal authorities repeatedly declared The Kat to be a "disorderly house" (a euphemism for a brothel), and the metropolitan police raided the establishment on several occasions during the Prohibition period.[12] One raid in February 1919 interrupted a violent brawl inside the club, during which a gunshot was fired.[1] The surprise raid resulted in the arrests of 25 krazy kats—22 men and only 3 women—described in a Washington Post report of February 22 as "self-styled artists, poets and actors".[12] The article noted that several arrested patrons "worked for the [federal] government by day and masqueraded as Bohemians by night".[12]
Closure
Throckmorton paints Mullin, a stage performer known as "The Girl With the Million Dollar Legs."[33] In the photo, a saber in its scabbard hangs from Mullin's waist. Mullin was a renowned expert in women's saber fencing and gave public exhibitions.[34]
The Krazy Kat speakeasy presumably closed some time prior to 1926 when Throckmorton and his wife Kathryn "Kat" Mullin relocated to Greenwich Village in New York City.[13] During this same period, Mullin sued Throckmorton for divorce after four years of marriage on December 17, 1926, after catching him in an extramarital affair with an unidentified woman—possibly film actress Juliet Brenon—in their Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan.[41] Mullin's friend, African-American stage actress Blanche Dunn, served as a supporting witness on her behalf in the divorce suit.[41] Throckmorton did not contest the divorce, and Mullin did not seek alimony.[42]
"Cleon Throckmorton: Extension of Remarks of Hon. Harrison A. Williams, Jr. of New Jersey in the Senate of the United States". Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the United States Congress. Vol. 112 (Part 24). United States: U.S. Government Printing Office. February 4, 1966. pp. A531–A532.
"Engagements: Brenon–Throckmorton". The New York Times. New York City. May 1, 1927. p. E7. Retrieved October 8, 2020. Mrs. Algernon St. John Brenon of the Hotel Iroquois has announced the engagement of her younger daughter, Miss Juliet Brenon, to Cleon Throckmorton of Washington, D.C., and this city. Miss Brenon is the daughter of the late A. St. John Brenon, who was well known in New York and Europe as a music critic.
"Robt. Baldwin Marries Eastern Girl". The Register-Champion (Thursday ed.). Hebron, Nebraska. June 18, 1925. p. 1. Retrieved May 6, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
"Throckmorton Scenic Artist of Real Skill". The Washington Times (Sunday ed.). Washington, D.C. December 11, 1921. p. D9. Cleon Throckmorton, well known Washingtonian and founder of the Crazy Kat Restaurant, is rapidly acquiring a reputation as a scene designer of parts through his association with the Provincetown Players of New York.
Alderman, Tim (May 2, 2020). "Gay History: A Gay Old Kat". timalderman.com. Retrieved October 4, 2020. The clientele included college kids, flappers and gays.... The club was named after the comic strip Krazy Kat (who can be seen on the door sign in the photo above). Krazy was the first androgynous hero(ine) of the comics: sometimes Krazy was a he, sometimes a she. As creator George Herriman stated, Krazy was willing to be either.
Baek, Raphaella (January 24, 2014). "Did Washington's gay bars open as gay bars?". Washington City Paper. Washington, D.C. Retrieved October 4, 2020. In the early 20th century, a speakeasy treehouse called Krazy Kat Klub operated right across from the present-day Green Lantern, at what was then No. 3 Green Court, and served as a rendezvous spot for D.C.'s early gay community.
Bellot, Gabrielle (January 19, 2017). "The Gender Fluidity of Krazy Kat". The New Yorker. New York City. Retrieved October 4, 2020. In an era when books depicting homosexuality and gender nonconformity could lead to charges of obscenity, 'Krazy Kat,' Tisserand notes, featured a gender-shifting protagonist who was in love with a male character.... A well-known bohemian bar in Washington, D.C., that welcomed queer customers seemed to acknowledge the strip's anarchic queerness by naming itself Krazy Kat.
Ditta, Joseph (February 16, 2018). "Guide to the Aileen St. John-Brenon Papers (1920-1947 )". New-York Historical Society Museum & Library. Retrieved October 4, 2020. Aileen's grandfather was the English dramatic critic Edward St. John-Brenon. Her uncle, Herbert Brenon (1880–1958), was a motion picture director perhaps best known for the silent films Peter Pan (1924) and Beau Geste (1926). Aileen's younger sister, Juliet St. John-Brenon (1895–1979), was an actress who appeared in some of their Uncle Herbert's films. Juliet married well-known set designer Cleon "Throck" Throckmorton (1897-1965), who maintained an active studio in bohemian Greenwich Village.
![A 23-year-old Cleon "Throck" Throckmorton, 18-year-old Kathryn "Kat" Mullin,[a] and a friend wearing a tricorne hat relax in the club's tree house cafe on July 15, 1921. No photograph of the club's indoor area—the speakeasy itself—is known to exist.](File:Krazy_Kat,_7-15-21_LCCN2016845559.jpg)
![Cleon Throckmorton (middle), Kathryn Mullin (far right), Inez Hogan (top left) and others in the tree house cafe. The flappers wear the rolled stockings and low heels typical of the era's fashion.[38]](File:Krazy_Kat_LOC_npcc.04659.jpg)
![Throckmorton paints Mullin, a stage performer known as "The Girl With the Million Dollar Legs."[33] In the photo, a saber in its scabbard hangs from Mullin's waist. Mullin was a renowned expert in women's saber fencing and gave public exhibitions.[34]](File:Krazy_Kat_LOC_npcc.04656.jpg)
