Deconstructing Hairy: Vali Asr Street

Exit: Vali Asr

The central avenue running 12 miles down the center of Tehran from south to north is Vali Asr Street, formerly known as Pahlavi and briefly known in 1979 as Mossadeq. Pahlavi after the Shah, Mossadeq after the democratic nationalist prime minister overthrown by US and UK in 1953, and Vali Asr the 12th Imam of Shia Islam who has been hiding since the 9th century. Vali Asr Street is reported to be the longest, continuous street in the Middle East, and one of the longest in the world.

I am now living maybe 15 steps away from the street at times referred to me as the Champs Elysees of Tehran. Lined with towering sycamores, tall and slender. On the large sidewalks motorbikes, men, women and children of all shapes and styles mingle protected under the grace of the trees. Those seedlings growing up one day to be towering pillars of beauty and shade is probably what Reza Shah envisioned when he had them planted some 70 years ago. But he probably didn't imagine the post-modern Islamic architecture looming greedily behind the timeless charm of the sycamores. Or the 'Super Star Burger' which was actually a McDonald's for a day (well, a morning and an afternoon) in 1991, before biker militias stormed in and denounced it into oblivion. By the way, fast food burgers here are as good as top restaurant burgers in the west-as a friend said, it is after all the land of kabob.

Vali Asr begins in the north with 'Tajrish' a market where you can find literally everything: Az shir-e morgh tah joon-e adamizad ("from chicken milk to to human souls") ...or the dirty version Az kir-e morgh tah koon-e adamizad ("from chicken dicks to human asses"). A bit down from Tajrish are various University faculties, and the Cinema Museum. Down further is my place, which is very near the famous 'Tavazo', where they sell precious nuts, dried fruits, teas and various other spices of the Iranian kitchen-always packed...
Countless shops and cafes, restaurants, fountained parks (which I don't really know what to do with), various monuments and buildings, end at the Tehran train station in the south.

This street has often been described to me, but now when I walk up and down it or cross its wide thoroughfare in peril, my own experience and feelings blend with the history and nostalgia that's been passed. Two above ground canals about 3 feet wide on either side of the street are called 'joob', like some kind of lucid dream which lies just above the surface as to feel its presence, thus ever so mysterious and magical. They bubble and drip through my consciousness as I walk along , this artery of the Tehran. The joobs carry down water from the mountains down throughout and all the way to the south of the city; by that time it may be quite polluted, as is the air and the social benefit. The water might symbolize how near that distant section of the city actually is.