Last Call at the Troika Supper Club

A Souvenir Photo

For more than 40 years our beloved grandparents Leon and Mary Grayson lived on the 4th floor of an early-20th century apartment house located one block from our Washington, D.C. childhood home. When their only child Ann passed away in 2015, we her children were surprised by how many letters, documents, negatives, and photos her parents had preserved. Among the latter was a rather bland 5×7 black and white photo of Leon within a sleeve titled “The Troika, Washington, D.C.”

A Second Souvenir Photo

Ann’s paternal cousin Monroe Parsons had a close relationship with each of his aunts and uncles, including Leon and his youngest sibling William Morris Grayson, I visited Monroe in the Graysons’ native Georgia, and together we reviewed the papers and mementos of his Uncle Bill. Imagine my surprise when among these we found an identical photo sleeve from The Troika Supper Club. The 5×7 within was not identical, however, and far more interesting.

The Diamond Horseshoe, New York City

Supper Clubs were a popular diversion in the 1930s and 40s. Each was different, but most offered music, dancing, and/or entertainment for the price of dinner. In a previous post we looked into a souvenir photo of Leon and Mary at the Diamond Horseshoe Supper Club in New York City, likely taken in the autumn or winter of 1945 after the release of the movie “Diamond Horseshoe” starring Betty Grable. The film is formulaic but still fun, and gives perhaps not a bad example of entertainment at a popular nightclub of the era.

The Troika, Washington, D.C.

Among the most popular of the many supper clubs in wartime Washington was the Troika, a Russian-themed nightclub housed in a historic mansion at Connecticut Avenue and K Street. Contemporary newspaper accounts often mentioned military, political, and international dignitaries that frequented the nightspot, along with the entertainment featured at that and other venues.

Wartime Service

Leon Grayson was 36-years old and married when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was commissioned a junior officer and served stateside at several East Coast U.S. Army Anti-aircraft Artillery posts from November 1942 until September 1944. He and his wife Mary wrote dozens of letters, exchanged phone calls, and were fortunate to spend short periods of time together in Georgia, New York, and Virginia, before reuniting in Washington, D.C.

Leon’s brother William M. Grayson was 25 and single when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in October 1940. In December 1941 he was a B-17 waist gunner at Clark Field in the Philippines. Despite some ten hours having elapsed since Pearl Harbor, American forces were once again surprised by waves of devastating aerial attacks, this time followed by amphibious landings. Bill was able to get a letter out from Bataan dated February 14, 1942, but that was the last the family heard for sixteen long months. His ordeal as a prisoner of war, described in other posts, resulted in the 185-lb. former football player weighing 85 lbs. at his release in August 1945. It was not until October 25, 1945 that Bill was deemed healthy enough to return to Georgia from a hospital in Washington State.

Last Call at the Troika, February 1946

And now we return to the Troika souvenir photos. The photo Bill preserved was of Leon, Mary, Bill, and a woman I did not know at a dinner table at the nightclub. The photo that Leon and Mary saved was solely Leon, cropped from the the original picture of the two couples. Though undated, after some research we can confidently state it was taken between February 3 and February 5, 1946.

Bill married Patricia Thomson on Saturday, inferred date February 2, in Newton, Massachusetts, where Leon served as best man. After describing a reception at the home of the bride’s parents, the wedding announcement said, “Mr. and Mrs. Grayson have gone to Florida…. They will return to Savannah, Georgia, where they will make their home.”¹

Leon and Mary likely accompanied the newlyweds on their train trip south, showed them around their adopted hometown of Washington, and treated the younger couple to dinner and a show at a local hotspot before seeing them off at the station a day or two later.

Though we have no other photos of Bill’s bride, we can confidently identify the former Patricia Thomson and pinpoint the date as no earlier than February 3, 1946. The front page of the (Washington) Evening Star of February 6 confirms the latest possible date for their dinner:

“The Troika Club, 1011 Connecticut avenue, was swept by a two-alarm fire early today, less than half an hour after 300 patrons had left…. Three persons who live in the fourth-floor apartment above the club were led to safety…. Firemen said the fire started shortly after 3 a.m. in a grease duct. Flames made a wreck of the ball room, ruining the gold leaf ceiling, and other expensive furnishings.”

The Troika never reopened, and its main floor remained empty until the historic mansion was razed in 1951. A glass and steel office building stands above the Farragut North Metro entrance on the spot of this former iconic supper club. A souvenir family photo, coincidentally, captures one of its final evenings.

Further reading: John DeFerrari’s incredibly informative Washington D.C. history blog Streets of Washington (links below)

• https://streetsofwashington.substack.com/p/two-russian-supper-clubs-thrived
• https://streetsofwashington.substack.com/p/the-alexander-shepherd-mansion-icon-of?utm_source=publication-search

¹ “Miss Patricia Thomson, Bride of Mr. Grayson,” Boston Herald, 3 Feb 1946.