The Tehran City Beautification Organization has purchased the house of the “father of modern poetry” and his wife, Alia Jahangir, in Dezashib for 13.5 billion tomans, with the aim of transforming it into a cultural hangout after renovation. Nothing remains of the house except an abandoned ruin with a yard full of garbage.
Nima Youshij's house, which had fallen into ruin over time and become a hangout for drug addicts, was acquired by the Tehran Municipality after 19 years of uncertainty. The building is located on Rahbari Alley in the Dezashib neighborhood, next to the houses of Simin Daneshvar and Jalal Al-Ahmad, and its registration as a historical monument went through administrative twists and turns from 2007 to 2017.
The media had previously reported that the current owner planned to convert it into a dining hall.
Hamid Mousavi, the mayor of District 1 of Tehran, said a few months ago: "With the aim of providing the necessary grounds for citizens to become more familiar with the history of Iranian literature, preserving the house of Nima Youshij, the "father of modern poetry," was placed on the municipality's agenda. With the negotiations that have been carried out, the steps to acquire this house are underway so that this place can be made available to citizens as a cultural hangout."
Samiollah Hosseini Makarem, then-Head of Tehran Municipality, announced in May 2019, at the opening ceremony of the Simin Daneshvar and Jalal Al-Ahmad House-Museum, that purchasing, restoring, and renovating houses in Tehran was one of the plans and priorities of the Tehran Municipality: "In the near future, we will also purchase Nima Youshij's house, and as soon as we purchase it, the restoration, revitalization, and conservation phase of the house will begin."
Hosseini Makarem added that the municipality wants Tehran to become a literary and artistic capital in addition to being the administrative capital of the country.
Nima's house was sold in 1966. Explaining the reason for the sale, Shragim, the only child of the family who lives in the United States, said that after the death of his parents, the house was mortgaged to the bank and he sold it to a retired colonel to pay off the bank debt.
Nima and his wife Alia Jahangir built this house in 1949, when Dezashib was a desert. The house has no special architectural features, but it is considered part of the cultural heritage of contemporary Iran. Aydin Aghdashloo, Seyyed Ali Salehi, Javad Mojabi, Mahmoud Dolatabadi, Rokhshan Bani-Etemad, Leili Golestan, and Kiomars Pour-Ahmad wrote to the mayor of Tehran requesting to purchase the house and organize it as a house-museum.
Source: DW
