Connect with us

ABOUT 1735

Our Story

1735 Inc. began as a creative production effort rooted in theater, public storytelling, and community impact. In 2016, the work started with Summer Friends, a production that raised more than $10,000 for Black Lives Matter and staged work at The Second City in Chicago.

By 2019, the organization had returned to New Orleans and launched 504Day, connecting production work to public history and place-based storytelling. At the same time, 1735 Inc. became increasingly focused on the blight, vacancy, and abandoned property crisis shaping communities — a challenge shared by cities across America and around the world.

Out of that work, 1735 Inc. launched NOLA Repurpose: a program designed to identify neglected, adjudicated, and abandoned properties and help return them to commerce, culture, housing, and community use.

For a time, the production side and the property side seemed separate. Now they operate as one mission. 1735 Inc. uses public history to tell the stories of people and places, property research to understand what happened to those places, and creative production to bring those stories back to the community. Through partnerships, 1735 Inc. works to activate spaces, house people, support artists, and build community-based programs that last.

Work with Us

WHAT IS 1735?

1 Mission

To educate, empower, and evolve communities by connecting people to their history,
restoring neglected property, and developing solutions that prepare communities for the future.

We believe understanding where we have been helps us make better decisions about where we are going.

7 ValUES

FAITH

We believe in something greater than ourselves and recognize the shared humanity and purpose that connects us.

HISTORY

We believe the past should be understood, preserved, questioned, and used to build a better future.We believe the past should be understood, preserved, questioned, and used to build a better future.

COMMUNITY

We believe lasting solutions are created with people, not simply for people.

STEWARDSHIP

We believe people, property, culture, resources, and institutions should be cared for responsibly and passed forward stronger than we found them.

EQUITY

We work to ensure people who have historically been overlooked have access to information, resources, property, opportunity, and a voice in their communities.

CREATIVITY

We believe complex problems require imagination. Art, research, storytelling, technology, and unconventional partnerships are tools for solving real problems.

RESILIENCE

We believe communities can recover, adapt, and evolve when people have the knowledge, resources, and opportunity to shape their own future.

3 Areas

PEOPLE

We invest in the people who make communities work—families, youth, artists, elders, property owners, entrepreneurs, researchers, and neighborhood leaders.

PROPERTY

We research, preserve, reclaim, and repurpose neglected spaces so that land and buildings can once again serve people, neighborhoods, culture, and commerce.

POLICY

We study the laws, systems, history, and public decisions that shape communities and turn that research into practical solutions, public education, and partnerships.

5 Ways We Serve

HISTORY

We research and share the stories, records, people, places, and policies that explain how our communities became what they are today.

THEATER

We bring people together through live performance and shared experiences that make history, culture, and community issues accessible.

EDUCATION

We turn research into understandable information, workshops, programs, resources, and opportunities that people can use in their everyday lives.

FILM & MEDIA

We preserve stories and expand their reach through documentaries, digital storytelling, interviews, short films, and other media.

LITERARY ARTS

We use writing, publishing, oral history, research, and storytelling to document experiences that might otherwise be forgotten.

THE 1735 FRAMEWORK

1 Mission.
7 Values.
3 Areas: People. Property. Policy.
5 Ways of Serving: History. Theater. Education. Film. Literary Arts.

That is 1735.

We preserve the past, serve people in the present, and prepare communities for what comes next.

Solving Tomorrow's Challenges Through History, Housing, and Community.

Why Community Revitalization Matters

Strong communities need spaces where people can live, gather, create, learn, and grow. When neglected properties are restored and reactivated, they support families, small businesses, artists, nonprofits, educational programs, and cultural events. But revitalization that ignores history repeats its mistakes. At 1735, public history and property restoration go hand in hand. Every building holds a story. Every restored space has the potential to serve people again — and to honor the people it served before.

Our Mission

1735 Inc. is a nonprofit organization using public history, property research, creative production, and strategic partnerships to return blighted, adjudicated, and abandoned properties back into commerce, culture, housing, and community use — while preserving the histories and identities connected to those places.

Our work begins in community. Our framework is built for the world.

Our Vision

By 2035, 1735 Inc. aims to help return abandoned and underused properties back into productive community use, while preserving the public history and cultural identity connected to those spaces — and to establish a replicable model that communities worldwide can adapt and build from.

We envision a future where every neighborhood has access to the tools, partnerships, and historical understanding it needs to restore what was lost and build what comes next.

A Message From Our Founder

1735 began with a simple belief: when we understand our history, we are better prepared to shape our future.

As a historian, I have spent years studying the people, properties, policies, and decisions that shaped New Orleans. That research taught me that many of the challenges communities face today are connected—and our solutions should be, too.
1735 is my way of putting history to work. Through research, property revitalization, education, storytelling, and creative programming, we help people understand what happened, navigate what exists today, and imagine what can come next.

We preserve the past not to remain there, but to prepare people for the future.

— Ariana A. Newman
Founder & Executive Director, 1735