Other

The Charlotte Street Arts Centre is downtown Fredericton's community arts hub, housed in the former Charlotte Street School at 732 Charlotte Street. The building itself is worth the visit: a two-storey brick and stone Italianate schoolhouse built in 1884-85, the oldest primary school building still standing in Fredericton. After a restoration, it reopened as an arts centre in 2005 and was designated a Provincial Historic Site in 2009. The original wide double stairway still dominates the main hallway.

Inside, the centre runs two gallery spaces, the Charlotte Glencross Gallery and the Penny Gallery, with rotating exhibitions by local and regional artists. The 1917 second-floor auditorium is now a technically equipped performance space that hosts concerts, theatre, and community events, and it can be rented. The building is also home to a roster of tenants working in music, dance, visual arts, and new media, plus a cafe on site.

Programming is steady year-round: classes and workshops in things like life drawing, oil painting, and zine-making, ArtReach camps for kids, piano rehearsal room access, and quirkier offerings like the Fredericton Zine Library and the Building Sounds artist residency. A membership program called The 732 Crew supports the centre's mandate to keep the arts accessible.

If you are deciding whether to drop in, check the events calendar on their website first; between exhibitions, performances, and workshops, what is on changes constantly, and the galleries pair well with a walk through the surrounding downtown neighbourhood.

Own this business? Put the Freddy Local Verified badge on your website →