$2.1 MILLION PROVIDES MAJOR FIXES SKATE PARK JUST `GNARLY' ENOUGH.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer

ENCINO -- Clay Greene, mouth agape, watched the skateboards fly through the air at Pedlow Field Skate Park and marveled.

``I've seen some gnarly stuff, man,'' the Agoura Hills teen said Friday, using gnarly in the positive sense. ``Inverts, guys just tearing it up. I did a feeble, but that was nothing at all.''

Over the past five years, the municipal park near Victory Boulevard and White Oak Avenue had seen plenty of kick flips and ollies, but its 10,000- square-foot layout was insufficiently gnarly.

Its sunken ramps were fine, its rails still set up some killer grinds, but it just wasn't as unreal as it could have been.

Until Friday.

The Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks cut the ribbon on the remodeled park, showing off the result of a year of work and some deep dough. Using $2.1 million from various voter-approved measures, the dudes in suits quadrupled the park's size and added a snake run and a pair of bowls.

When it needed to fix up the concrete skate oasis, Los Angeles went huge.

``Hey, look, I was a skater once but we didn't do anything like this,'' said Charles Singer, the department's principal recreation supervisor for the San Fernando Valley. ``We took the wheels off a roller skate and stuck them on a board. Now, there's railings, ramps and all kinds of things.

``It'll keep them out of everyone else's swimming pools.''

Back in the day, kids hopped into drained swimming pools and used their steep walls to gain momentum to pull tricks. They'd grind on park handrails, using urban features as a means to launch their boards into the air. They lived in fear of the 5-0, the cops who'd arrive to break up the fun.

They'd proudly affix ``Skateboarding Is Not A Crime'' stickers to the decks of their boards and revel in their rebel status. Now, while skateboarding isn't permitted on city streets, it's a mainsteam passion, promoted in city-owned parks like Pedlow.

``When I was skateboarding as a kid, we'd go to the local high school and go down the halls,'' said City Councilman Greig Smith, who represents the area. ``We wanted to give them something a little more challenging.''

The revamped park definitely met that challenge, according to Eric Grisham, 44, of Tarzana. A former professional skater who now runs the Varial Skate Shop in Woodland Hills, Grisham admires the new bowls' flow.

As the novice skaters, most not yet born when he first started skating in pools 32 years ago, flew around him, Grisham showed off his old tricks and smiled.

``Just knowing I can still do it, it's great,'' he said. ``When I started out, 16 or 17 was way too old.''

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Former professional skateboarder Eric Grisham pulls off a one-footed hand plant in the pool at the recently renovated Pedlow Skate Park at 17334 Victory Blvd. in Encino on Friday afternoon.

(2 -- 3 -- color) A skateboarder, top, jumps out of the snake run at the recently renovated Pedlow Skate Park on Victory Boulevard in Encino on Friday. Above, skaters pause between runs near a sign identifying the park.

(4 -- color) Skaters enjoy themselves at the recently renovated Pedlow Skate Park on Victory Boulevard in Encino on Friday.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer