Frozen in time, U.S. Embassy a monument to Iran hostage crisis

TEHRAN, Iran — The U.S. Embassy in Tehran remains frozen in 1979 as the 40th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis approaches, a time capsule of revolutionary graffiti, Underwood typewriters and rotary telephones.

The diplomatic compound was overrun by students angered when Washington allowed ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into the U.S. for medical treatment. What initially began as a sit-in devolved into 444 days of captivity for 52 Americans seized in the embassy.

Today, the embassy remains held by the Basij, a volunteer wing of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, partly as a museum and a space for student groups. Likewise, the Iranian Embassy in Washington remains empty since then-President Jimmy Carter expelled all of Iran’s diplomats during the crisis, although it is closed to the public and maintained by the U.S. State Department.

The 27-acre U.S. compound sits on the corner of Taleghani Street and Mofatteh Avenue, a busy thoroughfare through downtown Tehran.

Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Taleghani Street was known as Takhteh-Jamshid Street, the Farsi term for Persepolis, the ancient Persian religious capital. Mofatteh Avenue had been named after U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose distant cousin Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative, played a role in the 1953 coup that toppled Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and cemented the shah’s power.

The brick gate around the compound has become famous for its anti-American murals. On the day of the takeover, Nov. 4, 1979, Islamic students scaled its fence the same way their Marxist rivals had done earlier that year on Feb. 14.

The earlier incident was broken up by security forces, and an uneasy calm had returned to the embassy, although officials cut its staff to about 70 people.

The Great Seal of the United States on the outside wall has been defaced, although another one still is undamaged in white above the entryway of the compound’s chancery.