The Dunbar Pavilion

What makes this place special is its history. Do yourself a favor, go to their website, and read the About section. I'd be doing it a disservice by trying to summarize it.Currently it serves as a community center, a school, a barber academy, and it rents space out to artists and dancers and educators and even a publishing house! They have some great community programs and I was there for the Free Vegan Cooking class. The speaker, I believe her name is Rosie Kennedy, was great; equal parts knowledgeable and warm and engaging. She broke down a topic that can be daunting and demo'd a couple of recipes. Highly recommend signing up for any of her future programs if they (hopefully!!) have them. The space itself is not great for a cooking lecture because it's not a kitchen. The speaker did an amazing job, especially with all the constraints but she could have really benefitted from a more functional set-up. The room feels like its seen better days but they do have this super cool canvas wrapped around 2 of the walls that documents the history of the local African American community and the Dunbar. All in all I really appreciate having this resource in the community and look forward to their future programs!

It's a nice place to host an event or party the only thing is is that if they require for you to pay for their armed security vendor security needs to do their job they shouldn't allow fights to escalate before they act upon it don't run scared and then spray mace in the faces of those who were not the instigators of a fight.Too bad they don't have a kitchen in the same facility that we would you do bring food you can make sure that it stays warm or even cook some of that why you there at the event, I understand it is a local community center that was once shut down and has been restored but they need to do a lot better especially with the security and don't have some security people that look like they're only 12 years old what exactly can they do if a fight breaks out or if people become unruly.I'm sad to see that a very nice wedding in not so nice and the security guards could've done a lot better to prevent what happened.

I absolutely love what Cressworth Lander and his team is doing with the old school. It is a sordid history with the district, but an amazing story of community-based initiative and long-standing effort. For those who do not know the history, Dunbar was a segregated school in the early 20th century. The school opened in 1913 to students of African descent. Very powerful history here. I understand that the teachers were deeply, deeply devoted to the education of their students and, through all necessary means, ensured that the students had what they needed. Now, it is a venue for community events. There also is a barber school there. And there are plans for more renovations. It has been a tremendous undertaking restoring this school to the beautiful and necessary community resource that it is.