A new and expansive art project commissioned by Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf aims to make fine art a daily part of Tehranians' lives by placing some of the most striking and celebrated Western and Iranian art in full view of the city's residents.

A Gallery As Big As a Town is a "Free Art for the People" initiative that has so far removed advertisements from 1,500 billboards and replaced them with reproductions of work from both acclaimed homegrown talents and world-renowned masters from Rothko to Rembrandt.

Turning Tehran into a sweeping, de-corporatized urban art exhibition, and, in the process, inspiring on-to-go metropolitans to pause and become active participants in an open-air cultural playground, is a task we'd love to see our own city attempt. Because Times Square could use it.