1701-B 4th Avenue North

Birmingham, AL 35203

https://jazzhall.com/

How to visit: Tours are set to resume in Fall 2022

Operating as a movie house, the Carver Theatre opened in 1935 as a hub for nightlife in Birmingham’s Black Business District. The theatre was one of the few movie houses screening first-run films for African American audiences in the Jim Crow era. 

The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, a nonprofit created in 1978 to promote Alabama’s jazz legacy, took over operations of the Carver Theatre in the 1990s. A jazz museum was installed, along with a refurbished performance hall that could show movies and host stage performances. The theatre and museum continue to draw tourists from around the globe. 

More than 25 years after the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame made its home in the Carver, the Board of Directors knew it was time to modernize the facility. Fueled by a city investment of more than $4 million dollars, the AJHF called upon Studio 2H Design (Regions Field, West End Academy) and architect Creig Hoskins to bring the building into the 2020s. Along with architect Gary Nash, Hoskins’ design created hundreds more square feet of functional office and museum space, improved theatre seating, sightlines and acoustics, enhanced safety and accessibility, and created a beautiful space in which to work, visit and perform. A demolition of the Carver interior began in 2019, and in May 2020, Stone Building Company began reconstructing the Carver.