Travel Diary: Tehran’s Lalezar Street

Updated: 18 July 2019

This post was chosen as one of 5 top posts from September 2017 for Lonely Planet Pathfinders. Only the title was changed from the original, L is for Lalezar. The content and pictures remain the same.

My first encounter with Tehran’s District 12 (my favorite area of the city) was actually on Lalezar Street. My mom and I needed a lamp, and we were told that the lamp and chandelier stores were on Lalezar. “Lalezar?” she asked as if surely she had misheard. “You mean the old Lalezar? Huh, that’s strange.” 

Tehran of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the Tehran of my parents (and even before that), has always fascinated me. A different regime and smaller population made it a different world, one that I’ve longed to see only because it seems so inconceivable compared to the Tehran I know now. Growing up, my mom always talked about Lalezar in particular: the cinemas she and her friends and family would go to, the cafes she and my dad went to on their secret dates, the horse-drawn carriages, the shops where she used to buy sewing supplies and buttons. It was even the place where my khâleh (maternal aunt) met my dad when my parents were still dating. It all seemed so romantic to me. Even the name had a mysterious beauty…Lalezar (‘field of tulips’).

And I would be lying if I didn’t say that one of my fantasies is to have a “Midnight in Paris” moment: I’d stand on the corner of Lalezar at 12am and wait for one of those horse-drawn carriages to magically appear, pick me up, and transport me back to old Tehran. Well-dressed men in suits and hats, women with their hair done, high heels and skirts cinched at the waist, classic Chryslers and other American cars on the road, no traffic…

Birth of Lalezar

Lalezar was born after Naser al-Din Shah Qajar visited the Champs-Élysées in Paris in 1873 and wanted to recreate this vast and stylish avenue in Iran. It became the first modern, straight street in Tehran (before that, streets had always been paved as an afterthought, so they would twist and turn around already constructed buildings. This type of construction is still sometimes true today.) It was the site of all the hippest cafes, cabarets, theaters, and cinemas in the capital. Basically, it was Tehran’s center of culture.

Present-day Lalezar

When my mom and I arrived to shop for a lamp, all the romantic images that I held in my head of Lalezar were shattered. There were no cafes, definitely no cabarets, and only remnants of theaters and cinemas. On the street level, there were lamp stores as far as the eye could see. Above them, abandoned buildings, broken windows, and beautiful balcony doors that made me wonder when the last time was that anyone had opened them. The steady buzz of motorcycles left me entranced as we wove through the parked motorcycles lining the sides of the street.

“This is not the Lalezar I remember,” my mom said in disbelief.

It might have been unlike anything I had imagined, but I absolutely loved it. So a while later, I joined a tour on a freezing winter morning to learn about its history.

From ‘Field of Tulips’ to ‘Graveyard of Theaters’

Now nicknamed “the graveyard of theaters,” Lalezar used to house twenty-something cinemas and theaters (the exact number now escapes me), some of the most famous of which were Rex, Cristal, Iran, Metro (which used to be under ground), and Laleh, among others. The challenge now is finding all of them! They’re small theaters, many with no signs, so it’s easy to miss them. If you go to the movies at Kourosh Cineplex, each of its 14 modern theaters are named after one of the cinemas of Lalezar.

Famous Buildings of Lalezar

The home of renowned writer Sadegh Hedayat is just off of Lalezar. Though closed, you can pull yourself up over the door to get a peek in the courtyard. Ettehadieh House, an early 20th-century-style mansion where the popular 1976 TV series My Uncle Napoleon (based on the book by Iraj Pezeshkzad) was filmed is also located here. While on my tour, it was being renovated to become a cafe (at least that’s what I’ve heard), as many of the old mansions in Tehran have. You’ll also find Grand Hotel (the most important of its time) here and the former cabaret, Moulin Rouge.

Lalezar and Me

But even though present-day Lalezar is only a shell of its former self, its charm is undeniable. I make it a point to say hello every so often, almost like a pilgrimage. “You’re going to Lalezar?” my friends and family ask me. “Why? There’s nothing to see there.” But I beg to differ. It’s not just another street in Tehran for me. It’s a living entity that has witnessed things I have only dreamed of. It knew my parents back when my siblings and I didn’t yet exist. It knew them as young university students madly in love. There’s no horse and carriage to take me back, but I instead rely on my imagination. As I walk up and down the street, I pause to look at the broken windows and old signs, imagining which of these stores my mom bought buttons from. What was her favorite store on Kucheh Berlan (Berlin Alley)? Which cafe did she and my dad go to on a date? Where did they sit? What did they drink? What did they talk about?

When I pass Cafe Pars on the corner of Jomhuri and Lalezar, I can see them sitting at a table behind the window, holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, and maybe sipping on a café glacé. As for their conversation, that will forever stay in the heart of Lalezar.

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