TEHRAN – A restoration project has been commenced on a 70-year-old stairway, which goes down to Tehran’s Vali-e Asr Street, famed as the longest in West Asia. 

The stairway is the first of the eight sets of stairs that connect Vali-e Asr Street to other streets and alleys nearby, the mayor of the district has said.  

The project aims to improve the appearance of the stairways and remedy the unfavorable conditions that had occurred in previous years, Mehr quoted Turaj Farhadi as saying on Tuesday. 

The other seven sets of the historical stairways will also undergo restoration works in the near future, he noted.
 
While restoring the stairways, efforts are made to maintain their originality and antiquity, the official added.

Vali-e Asr Street runs for over 17 kilometers from the railway station in the south of the metropolis to the Tajrish square in the north. It is lined with many shops, restaurants, parks, cinemas, and cultural centers.

In the 19th century, the route once passed through Shemiran gardens, barren fields between Tehran and Shemiran, Yusef Abad, Abbas Abad, and Behjat Abad ending at its southernmost tip inside the then Qajar-era town of Tehran.

Vali-e Asr Street, which is registered on Iran’s National Heritage list, was added to UNESCO’s temporary list in 2019. The street is one of the main urban elements of the Iranian capital in the north-south direction.

“Vali-e Asr Street is the best example which witnesses the persistent exercises of creating the concept of Garden-Street as a destination of an urban area from the Safavid era up to the modern time. A variety of architectural styles from traditional to modern and eclectic is a representation of eastern and western values synthesis in a specific geographical point, which carries a true definition of an architectural and spatial place,” according to UNESCO.

ABU/AFM