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Constructed in 1926, the Dunbar Apartments are a set of Harlem real estate buildings in New York City, built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to provide Harlem apartments for African Americans. These Harlem apartments were designed by architect Andrew J. Thomas. The complex consists of six independent Harlem real estate buildings with 511 Harlem apartments that occupy an entire city block, between 149th St to the South and 150th St to the North, and between Frederick Douglass Blvd to the West and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr Blvd to the East, with the Northwest corner of the building cut off by Macombs Place. These Harlem rentals are a registered landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The complex's buildings of Harlem rentals center around an interior garden courtyard, and each building of Harlem apartments is "U"-shaped so that every apartment receives easy air flow and direct sunlight at some point during the day. The Dunbar is considered the "first large garden-complex of Harlem apartments in Manhattan."

The buildings were constructed as an experiment in Harlem real estate and housing reform, and according to the New York City Landmarks Commission, was "the first large cooperative built for "Peoples of African Descent." Rather than being set up as Harlem rentals, Harlem apartments, the complex was a housing cooperative. Tenants were required to pay a down payment of $50 per room, and then $14.50 per room per month, much of which went towards a mortgage on the space. In 22 years, if payments were all made on time, tenants would own their Harlem apartments.

The original tenants were by and large middle class, and inexpensive childcare was provided on-site to support working mothers. However, the building opened in 1928, and the Great Depression hit only one year later. The management of the complex was forced to loosen a number of cooperative rules in order to allow people to, for example, take in lodgers to live in their Harlem apartments. Even so, too many tenants failed to make their payments on their Harlem apartments and the buildings defaulted on their mortgage to Rockefeller. He foreclosed in 1936, and a year later the buildings were converted to Harlem rentals.

The Dunbar Apartments are named in honor of the famous African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Famous personalities to live in the Dunbar include leaders of the Civil Rights movement such as W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, and Asa Philip Randolph, entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the explorer Matthew Henson.