Ferdousi Square hosted scores of antique and exchange shops on its southern wing (the right side of the picture). The east-west wing, although mostly sidewalked by all sorts of retail stores, was becoming Tehran's main downtown avenue, named "Shah-Reza" Ave. before the revolution. Tehran's dispatch taxi service ("Taxi Telephony"), a modern concept with those day's standards, would use the Square as its downtown harbor.

Today: Ferdousi Square is probably the least-changed point in Tehran. It not only kept its name after the revolution, but also still shows off the statue of the famous Persian poet Ferdousi as maybe the only statue in town to remain up. The antique shops are still there, but the exchange stores have been through all sorts of regulatory ups and downs. The east-west wing is named "Enghelab" (Revolution) and is the main mid-town route carrying tens of thousands (quite possibly hundreds of thousands) of people back and forth to work and home everyday. The two buildings on the far side (left and right) are still there (same shape and color, but grayed in smog) without the roof-top ads. The dispatch taxi is also still in service.