WTNH News Channel 8 / News / 1999

	Skateboard park dedicated in memory of teenager (Old Saybrook-WTNH) _ An Old Saybrook teen killed in a skateboarding accident is remembered being remembered with a project that others hope will save lives. The project is a new skate park, complete with a pyramid, launch ramp, quarter pipe, and grinding box. News Channel 8's Jocelyn Sigue reports. Old Saybrook has learned you can't stop the skaters. So with the help of private and corporate donations the Old Saybrook shopping center opened a skate park today. It's one of just a few in the state and the only on private property. Anna Pugliese helped make this happen. The park is named for her son, Eric M. Overton. It's a project Overton championed before his death at the age of 17. He was hit by a car while skateboarding. Anna Pugliese, Mother: "I know that it's going to save lives and that parents won't have to worry. They will have their equipment on, have their helmets on, and they will be safe." Pugliese says she worried every day about her son skateboarding in the streets. The city outlaws skating in public parks because of the damage to it's facilities. Worries over liability kept the city from building a park like this one. The owner of the shopping center says of course he worries about the kids moving beyond this fence to the parking lot, but before this park that's where they were skating anyway. Matthew Rubin, Old Saybrook Shopping Center: "It's hard to tell them not to do it if you don't have a place for them to go. So now we can tell them not the shopping center, not Main Street, you can come here." Erik Halvorsen hasn't skated since his best friend died a year and a half ago. It just didn't feel right until now. Erik Halvorsen: "If nobody had we would have paid for it ourselves. We would have gotten the money somehow." The project cost about $20,000 in all, and is not quite complete. Coordinators are hoping to raise more money to help cover the cost of monitors who will watch over the kids in the park. Today's News Page. WTNH Home Page. ©1999 WTNH/WTNH-DT A LIN station.

Skateboard park dedicated in memory of teenager
(Old Saybrook-WTNH) _ An Old Saybrook teen killed in a skateboarding accident is remembered being remembered with a project that others hope will save lives. The project is a new skate park, complete with a pyramid, launch ramp, quarter pipe, and grinding box.
News Channel 8's Jocelyn Sigue reports.

Old Saybrook has learned you can't stop the skaters. So with the help of private and corporate donations the Old Saybrook shopping center opened a skate park today. It's one of just a few in the state and the only on private property.

Anna Pugliese helped make this happen. The park is named for her son, Eric M. Overton. It's a project Overton championed before his death at the age of 17. He was hit by a car while skateboarding.

Anna Pugliese, Mother: "I know that it's going to save lives and that parents won't have to worry. They will have their equipment on, have their helmets on, and they will be safe."

Pugliese says she worried every day about her son skateboarding in the streets. The city outlaws skating in public parks because of the damage to it's facilities. Worries over liability kept the city from building a park like this one.

The owner of the shopping center says of course he worries about the kids moving beyond this fence to the parking lot, but before this park that's where they were skating anyway.

Matthew Rubin, Old Saybrook Shopping Center: "It's hard to tell them not to do it if you don't have a place for them to go. So now we can tell them not the shopping center, not Main Street, you can come here."

Erik Halvorsen hasn't skated since his best friend died a year and a half ago. It just didn't feel right until now.

Erik Halvorsen: "If nobody had we would have paid for it ourselves. We would have gotten the money somehow."

The project cost about $20,000 in all, and is not quite complete. Coordinators are hoping to raise more money to help cover the cost of monitors who will watch over the kids in the park.

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