I'd imagine that since the map of Manhattan was first drawn, 325 Bowery has played host to a great many businesses. Evidently, back in the early-to-mid 70's, it was a jazz club called The Tin Palace before morphing into a go-go bar and then back to a jazz club again. I'm sure it went through a variety of further permutations until the late 80's. I seem to remember it being a dingy venue (much like CBGB to the south and Great Gildersleeves' to the north) called either the Reggae Lounge or the Island Lounge. I've searched for documentation of the former (I remember hearing that Black Flag played there), but only found a flyer for a Black Flag gig at a venue by that name over on West Broadway (an equally unlikely spot these days for a punk rock club). Still, I want to say there was a Reggae Lounge at 325 Bowery. I can vividly still see the ramshackle facade in my head. I did find evidence of its incarnation as an Island Lounge sometime in the early 90's, but I have no recollection of that place.
Regardless, since those days, the Bowery has undergone a radical transformation. That particular corner was christened Joey Ramone Place by the city in 2003. You can still see the sign, although it's hard to spot, given how high up the lamp pole it is. The height of the sign is not an homage to Joey's own towering stature, but rather it's to discourage fans from ripping it off.
Whatever it was called, the music venue on that corner closed ages ago and was nothing for a while before reopening as a series of failed restaurants, notably a Kelly & Ping's and a mongolian BBQ joint. It even served as home base to one of chef Marco Pierre White's warring teams of aspirational restauranteurs in the stalled reality TV series, "The Chopping Block" in 2008. For some reason, nothing seems to last long on that corner.
So why am I talking about all this now? Well, I had a couple of days off this week, and the wife wanted to treat me to lunch. Imagine my grimace, then, when the place she chose was Peel's, the posh-o new bistro at 325 Bowery. I similarly blanched back in 2007, when Peg and I were invited to a party for a pair of our neighbors' birthday at the Bowery Hotel. As much as I acknowledge the passage of time, I still don't like patronizing these awful new businesses that have sprouted up on the Bowery. Call me a hopeless nostalgist or whatever, but I just find them kinda reprehensible.
My wife, it should be noted, doesn't suffer from these same hang-ups. Having grown up in London and elsewhere, she doesn't get nearly as precious as I do about issues of location and local history and blah blah blah. So, off to lunch we went.
Incidentally, while walking down Broadway en route to the place, we passed actress Dakota Fanning on Broadway. This is only mildly relevant to the story, but stay with me.
In any case, we sidle on up into Peel's and it's a surreal experience. To be fair, the joint is lovely. They clearly dumped a pile of money on the place. Even for a Monday lunch hour, the place was buzzing. I can't imagine what it must be like on a weekend. We sat at a table downstairs in the front, adjacent to a trio of portly gentlemen having an animated discussion about cinema. Facing the door, I was treated to a veritable parade of patrons -- well-scrubbed fashionistas, dressed down in studiously grubby Chuck Taylors and mirrored sunglasses, iPad-toting urban professionals and a requisite gaggle of chirpy Eurofolk. I ordered the Spring Benedict (pictured) and a pint of Stella Artrois .... secretly hoping my meal would suck. Peg ordered a dubious-sounding dish called a Gobblecado (a turkey & avocado sandwich, I believe it was).
Whilst taking the first, lovely pull on my Stella, I gazed back up at the door and who should be walking in -- with fabulously messy, just-out-of-bed hair and bedroom-lidded eyes -- but Dakota Fanning's foil in "The Runaways" and erstwhile "Twilight" mega-star, Kristen Stewart. Stewart and her coterie of fawning acolytes were whisked upstairs (where there's evidently a larger dining room). Having now spotted two teen bombshells in the course of a single half-hour whilst dining on an pricey meal in a building that may or may not have once played host to a Black Flag gig on a strip that formerly embodied the term "desolation boulevard," I suddenly felt like a complete tourist in my own city. 
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