Aaron Marcavitch, Executive Director of the Anacostia Trails State Heritage Area, is a leader in heritage tourism and preservation partnership in Maryland and will be recognized with The Gearhart Professional Service Award by Preservation Maryland at our annual Best of Maryland awards.
Through the long-term Maryland Milestones initiative of the Anacostia Trails State Heritage Area, Aaron connects heritage and recreation tourism through much of Prince George’s County. Under his leadership, the Heritage Area recently opened the doors to its Heritage Center in a rehabilitated theatre in the heart of hip and historic Hyattsville. Other Heritage Center partners include Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center and the Neighborhood Design Center.
The Heritage Center is a stunning example of Aaron’s partnership building strategies and brought together an arts center and artists studios with a strong bike and recreational culture to create a hub of exploration of Maryland’s history across time. Aaron keeps the Center active with special events, bike scavenger hunts, and other creative tourism strategies — many of them based out of the Heritage Center or other gems in Prince George’s County.
Previously, Aaron was instrumental in the statewide celebration of the statewide 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812 and the Battle of Bladensburg in the Heritage Area. Aaron is active in his community in the National Historic Landmark district of the City of Greenbelt – he’s a member of the Greenbelt Housing, Inc – a housing cooperative established with the town in the 1930s. And has a passion for roadside architecture – active in the Society for Commercial Archaeology – like that found along Maryland’s Route 1 that you can all pick up in his very recently published Images of America book, “US Route 1: Baltimore to Washington.”