The Tehran City Beautification Organization has purchased the house of the “father of modern Persian poetry” Nima Yushij and his wife Aliyeh Jahangir in Dezashib for 13 billion and 500 million tomans to convert it into a cultural hub after renovation. Nothing remains of the house except a dilapidated, abandoned ruin with a courtyard full of garbage.
Nima Yushij’s house, which had become ruins and a place of drug addict traffic over time, came into the ownership of Tehran Municipality after 19 years of being unresolved. This building is located on Rahbari Lane in the Dezashib neighborhood, adjacent to the houses of Simin Daneshvar and Jalal Al-e Ahmad, and its registration as a historical structure went through administrative complications from 1380 to 1396 (2001 to 2017).
Media outlets had previously reported that the current owner intended to convert it into a restaurant.
Hamid Mousavi, the mayor of Tehran’s District One, said several months ago: “With the aim of providing the necessary conditions for citizens to become more familiar with the history of Iranian literature, preserving Nima Yushij’s house, the ‘father of modern poetry,’ was placed on the Tehran Municipality’s agenda, and through negotiations conducted, the acquisition process of this house is underway so that this place will be made available to citizens as a cultural hub.”
Samieollah Hosseini Makarem, the then acting head of Tehran Municipality, announced in April 2019 at the inauguration ceremony of the house-museum of Simin Daneshvar and Jalal Al-e Ahmad, that purchasing, renovating, and restoring houses in Tehran is among Tehran Municipality’s programs and priorities: “In the near future, we will also purchase Nima Yushij’s house, and as soon as it is purchased, the phase of restoration, revival, and preservation of the house will begin.”
Hosseini Makarem added that the municipality wants Tehran to become, in addition to the administrative capital of the country, the literary and artistic capital.
Nima’s house was sold in 1966. Sharakim, the family’s only son who lives in America, explained the reason for the sale, saying that after his parents’ death, the house was mortgaged to a bank, and he sold it to a retired colonel to pay off the bank debt.
Nima and his wife Aliyeh Jahangir built this house in 1949, at a time when Dezashib was a desert. From an architectural perspective, the house has no special characteristics, but it is considered part of contemporary Iran’s cultural heritage. Aydin Aghdashloo, Seyyed Ali Salehi, Javad Mojabi, Mahmoud Dowlatabad, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Leili Golestan, and Kiumarth Pourahmad had written a letter to Tehran’s mayor requesting the purchase of the house and organizing it as a house-museum.
