> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Alva is still carving out a niche in skating circles - URL: https://www.smdp.com/alva-is-still-carving-out-a-niche-in-skating-circles/ - Published: 2006-11-20T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T23:08:08.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import *Still skating by* *By AMY KAUFMAN Special to the Daily Press* LITTLE ETHIOPIA — When Tony Alva needs to ground himself, he jumps on his skateboard and rolls home to Santa Monica. “I keep my memories of Santa Monica inside my heart and inside my soul always,” said the 49-year-old Dogtown legend, revealing the uneven, chipped teeth he’s earned through skating falls over the years. Dressed in a thinning cotton button-up and cargo pants, Alva sat on a fold-up chair, fingering the dewy, blonde-infused dreadlocks that graze his shoulders. In his namesake store — AlvaLA, a small hole-in-the-wall located in the Little Ethiopia section of Los Angeles — the skateboarding legend sat amid walls covered in designed skateboards and photographs of himself as a teenager sporting a fluffy, chaotic looking afro. “I have a pair of those. Those are dope, man,” Alva yelled toward a young customer. “I’m just doing a little interview for a paper in Santa Monica. That’s where I grew up, dude.” Indeed, Alva is a proud Santa Monican. Born at Santa Monica Hospital in 1957, he grew up on the dirtier side of the city. With an alcoholic for a father, Alva was drawn to the allure of adventure sports like skate-boarding and surfing to escape the realities of his home life. The adolescent quickly got in with the older crowd who hung out by the now non-existent Pacific Park Pier. It was there that Alva and his buddies caught waves in between the curvy tracks of former roller coasters which hung messily in the ocean. In time, Alva’s prowess on the streets and waves garnered attention, and the 16-year-old was asked to join the Zephyr competition team. “He wasn’t a candidate for the Boy Scouts by any means,”said Jim McDowell,Alva’s old friend and a co-partner at Rip City Skates on Santa Monica Boulevard. “But that was the attraction, and that’s why so many people emulated him. He was treated like a rock star in every sense of the word.” In 2005, the life stories of Alva and his buddies were made into the feature film “Lords of Dogtown,” starring Heath Ledger. The film was inspired by pal Stacy Peralta’s 2001 documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys.” “I had to see the movie four times in the theater before I could accept the way it was told,” said Daniel Clements, manager at Brooklyn Projects Skateboard on Melrose Avenue. Clements said he admired the 19-year-old Alva even as a 10-year-old. “But after the film came out, there were more 12-22-year-olds coming in who were buying more old-school boards, fedoras and Vans than ever.” Today, McDowell said, Alva remains “an icon in the business,” with a brand name, his own Vans shoe designs and dozens of professional skateboarding titles under his belt. Alva admits he occasionally goes up in his friend’s helicopter to scout for abandoned neighborhoods with empty pools in which to skate. But as he nears his 50th year, Alva is finally coming to accept his adulthood. “I always wanted to be Peter Pan,” Alva admitted.“But I’ve let go of that dream. Now I’m a role model and mentor to so many kids, and that responsibility has greater priority to me.” Alva recently stayed still long enough to speak with the Daily Press. How has Santa Monica come to define your identity? “It always has been part of who I am. I was born there in the late ’50s and I was a latch-key kid riding a bicycle and skate-boarding all over the neighborhood. I was just a little runt magnetized to the beach. I grew up in the North of Wilshire neighborhood and went to Lincoln Junior High School. But it was kind of funny because what I did was sociologically, I kind of regressed to the other side of the tracks. I liked to hang out in Ocean Park and the south side and in the grittier parts of town instead of going north to Montana and San Vicente. I was attracted there because of the Pacific Park Pier, which was the epicenter of the hard-core, underground surf scene.” What happened to the old pier? “Eventually, it turned into a pyromaniac’s paradise with people burning parts of the pier. The fire department got tired of putting out the fires, so they finally just let the pier burn down and it fell into the ocean. When the winter storms came, the waves distributed the wood into almost an artificial reef. And the waves would become really good there on a swell. Inside the pier, there was a secret spot called ‘The Cove.’ Not everybody was privy to that spot. And from the age of 10 on, I looked up to all the locals and all the old-school surfers and a lot of the guys on the Zephyr competition team who would surf there.” Why did you want to be a part of their crowd? “Their skill, their style and the way they carried themselves attracted me. The bravado and the style and the attitude that pervaded their whole crew was intense. Being a surfer back in the day, in Venice and Santa Monica, you tried to have a little bit of low-rider, biker, kind of pirate hybrid personality. They were very rebellious and outcast in society, so they created their own slice of society.” When did you realize your skateboarding talent? “I started entering amateur contests in the Westside area. And I was doing really well — I won about every contest I entered right off the bat. Soon, I was asked by the owners of the Zephyr shop — Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom — to join their team and that’s where the legend started to build. We were invaders. We’d go in there like a hockey team at a figure skating competition. We started developing this reputation for not only being competitively fierce but being brash in everybody’s face. That’s when I really started to find my true family.” How did you begin to market yourself as a brand? “At 19, I was the men’s overall world professional skateboarding champion at the Hang Ten Carlsbad skatepark. That’s when I got an offer from a guy who was developing skateboard products.” You’re involved in endorsing many products. Do you harbor any anti-corporate sentiments? “I think being a professional skateboard-er, even if you’re Tony Hawk, is like walking on the edge of a razor blade. Because you’re walking between corporate and hard-core. If you fall to either side, it could be devastating to making a living and to your livelihood. I never sold out and I’ve always come from the hard-core gritty side.” You were largely influenced by punk rock music. Did you ever skate with music playing? “There’s photos of me skating and wearing headphones. I used to listen to the rock and roll stations and I’d tie these cheesy Radio Shack headphones on with a bandana. We’d call those photos B.W. — ‘Before Walkman.’” What’s more difficult, surfing or skating? “Surfing’s a lot harder. It involves years and years of just learning to get from point A to point B — from the beach to where the waves actually break. That’s called wave knowledge. The reward is actually riding the wave. It took me about five years to be adept. I went through the frustration of just getting beat down by the ocean and more experienced surfers. With skateboarding, I have a technique, but with surfing, I’m just a student. Every day, you’re at the risk hurting yourself.” Have you ever had any major injuries? “With surfing, I’ve had more injuries because of the fin of the board and the rocks. I’ve gotten stitches a few times. I’ve broken my teeth and got hit in my eye by the point of the board. Skateboarding, I’ve been pretty fortunate, knock on wood, because I developed a technique for falling off a skateboard. And here I am now, a 49-year-old professional skateboarder.” How do people react to seeing an adult out there on a board? “Sometimes they just trip out. Dads will recognize me and have their kids with them. They have to school ’em a little bit like, ‘you know who that guy is?’ And the thing that’s really cool is that young kids are not only riding my boards, but if I go to a skatepark and there’s a lot of kids around, I get a lot of recognition and respect from them. It’s kind of a trip to be not even 50-years-old and there is a movie about me a little kid has seen, or I’m a character in a video game. It’s very surreal.” What did you think about your portrayal in the feature film “Lords of Dogtown?” I like Victor Rasuk as an actor. And I think as far as a PG-13 representation of my life goes, it was cool. But as far as the real story goes, it’s more of an R-or an X-rated story. There was sex, drugs, and rock and roll as part of the culture of the ’70s,and you can’t show that stuff in a movie and expect to have a family audience. It was,like,super hard-core.We really were pre- AIDS,pre a lot of things that hold people back.” Why did you call Santa Monica ‘Dogtown?’ “Dogtown had a dog-eat-dog kind of atmosphere. It fit our attitude towards life. It was a competitive, crusty, but somehow soulful and beautiful place on the edge of LA.” Where are the best places to skate in Santa Monica today? “Ocean Park and Santa Monica Canyon. I still look for underground stuff to skate and I still skate the banks and schools around the areas even though the principles don’t want us there. The janitors don’t really care, they’re cool because we’re not wrecking anything or being vandals. We’re basically just using it as a canvas. It’s an abstract art, skate-boarding.” How has Santa Monica changed since you were a kid growing up here in the ’70s? “It’s gentrified quite a bit. But the streets haven’t changed. Maybe the buildings and businesses and people have changed, but there’s still that element of unpolished, street-oriented Westside beach town. Santa Monica is really a seedy little filthy paradise. It’s not all clean and sanctified like it looks. I think it’s awesome they just completely outlawed smoking. The city is geared towards a family and a healthy lifestyle. But when I go down there and actually skate and look for the pockets that I love, I look for the seedier parts of town. The two can co-exist.” What do you think about the owner wanting to redevelop the Horizons West surf and skate shop? “It’s a bummer. I think there’s so much pressure from people wanting to build con-dos and lucrative businesses, and it’s hard for them to hang in there. It’s to the neighborhood’s advantage to have something historic and keep the old school vibe around.” Is there a particular location you hold close to you in the city? “That statue of Santa Monica at the end of Wilshire at Palisades Park. As soon as I skate by that, that is the iconic symbol for just, like, serenity and peace and the whole cultural definition of what Santa Monica’s all about.” What will your next project be? “I think I wanna do a photo biography book, 2007 will be my 50th birthday. I have a lot of friends who are photographers and they’ll all contribute photos, and I’ll do the captions.” Do you think you’ll always have roots in Santa Monica? “Even if I get off at LAX from being across the world and I need to go straight back to the neighborhood, I just take the number 3 bus for 75 cents or whatever. I’m home in about 5 minutes. I get off the bus and start skating around the neighborhood. I’m seriously grounded home. Wherever I am, if people ask me where I’m from, I say ‘Santa Monica,’ you know? It’ll always be home.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/112006-03_01.jpg) helped open the city’s Cove Skatepark in June 2005\. (Photo: Photo courtesy Skateboarder Tony Alva) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 20, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/112006.pdf?ref=smdp.com)