On Friday evening, people will gather at the base of the driveway leading to Sullivan West High School in Lake Huntington. There, where students now arrive for school, a historical marker will point to a place that looked very different more than half a century ago.

This was once the site of the Green Acres Hotel.

The marker, the 19th installed by the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project, is an effort to expand the familiar story of the Catskills resort era beyond the region’s biggest and most famous hotels. It explores the intertwined histories of Lake Huntington, Fosterdale, Kenoza Lake and Callicoon — and the Jewish, Black, Italian and Polish communities that vacationed, worked and built lives there.

“Western Sullivan County, I think, has an untapped Borscht Belt history,” said Marisa Scheinfeld, founder and project director of the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project.

Scheinfeld says she grew up with the conventional image of the Borscht Belt: the Concord, Grossinger’s, the glamour, neon signs, large dining rooms and swimming pools.

But, she said, “there was never one community or one hotel or one version of what the Borscht Belt or the Catskills was.”

Instead, the resort region was a collection of communities and experiences — including hotels serving groups that found themselves excluded from other spaces.

Scheinfeld points to the story of Elmer Rosenberg, who established Green Acres in Lake Huntington. When Rosenberg came to the area looking to buy property, Scheinfeld said, Jews faced restrictions on purchasing land.

The history of Green Acres is also a family story. The hotel was destroyed by fire in 1966, and the family eventually reopened Green Acres at the former New Roxy Hotel in Loch Sheldrake.

On Friday, Rosenberg’s grandchildren, Paul Blumberg and Amy Goldbas, are expected to share family memories at the dedication.

For Isaac Jeffreys, the project’s public relations and visual coordinator, having family members connected to the hotel present at the site adds something that historical documents alone cannot provide.

“It’s easy to think that maybe nobody’s left from this era,” Jeffreys said. “And to have somebody come and speak about, you know, I grew up here, I lived here, I experienced this and this was here — it’s meaningful.”

The Lake Huntington marker also represents a geographic expansion for the project. Scheinfeld said the project has previously focused heavily on what she called the Borscht Belt’s epicenter around Monticello, Liberty and Fallsburg.

Now, the markers are reaching farther into the region’s periphery.

And this one will be installed at a high school — the first such location for the project.

For Scheinfeld, that is significant. Students will see the marker every day as they drive up the school driveway.

“It brings it full circle why we’re doing this project, which is for the next generation,” she said.

After the marker dedication, attendees can head to the nearby Nutshell Music Hall, a nearly century-old Catskills music and dance venue now home to the Delaware Valley Opera, for a screening of Dirty Dancing.

Jeffreys said the Nutshell has its own layered history and, fittingly, its interior bears a striking resemblance to the setting of the movie’s climactic dance scene.

“It’s as if you’re walking into the film,” Jeffreys said. “And not only are you walking into the film, you’re walking into 100 years of history.”

(Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project)

For Scheinfeld, the deeper purpose of the marker project is rooted in understanding why these communities developed here in the first place.

The Borscht Belt, she said, was shaped in part by antisemitism and racism, but it also became a place where communities created their own spaces and cultural worlds.

“Our project is really about tolerance,” Scheinfeld said. “It’s about education, it’s about awareness.”

The influence of those communities eventually extended well beyond Sullivan County, she said, shaping American music, comedy, sports, entertainment and even the way Americans came to think about vacationing.

The dedication begins at 5 p.m. at Sullivan West High School in Lake Huntington and is free and open to the public. The Dirty Dancing screening begins at 7:30 p.m. at the historic Nutshell Music Hall. Tickets are $10, with proceeds supporting the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project and Delaware Valley Opera.