The construction of the artificial turf soccer field near here continues along. (We've blogged about it previously here and here.)

Now the retainer is all the way around the four sides of the field, and the resulting box has been filled to the brim with gravel, which they've been pounding down all week. The whole house shuddered as they rolled over it and pushed it down to a perfectly flat floor:

That's about a three-to-four-foot drop-off from the edge of the playing field to the parking lot below. I wonder what kind of barrier they'll put up to keep wayward soccer balls on the field.

In between the gravel and retaining wall, there's a wooden liner -- perhaps to attach some element of the artificial turf to?

Overall, it's slightly ironic. After all that work, we've now gone from paved blacktop to paved gravel. But of course, it won't be that way for long:

And now it's much more level, and with a drainage system.

Some of that Irvington clay they pushed around has been put to good use behind that retaining wall over on the north side, next to the neighbor whose house sits up a bit from the schoolyard:

I suspect the turf installers will be showing up any day now. Alas, the grafitti psychos should be here any minute now as well.