A tight-knit construction crew’s months of labor and progress in Ballston are the subject of an online photo album by a neighborhood photographer.
Since the spring, David Moss has captured dozens of scenes conveying the teamwork and physical feats of construction workers at the UrbA phase II redevelopment site next to Harris Teeter, where a 197-unit apartment building is getting built at 600 N. Glebe Road.
Moss first noticed the crew from Hyde Park Condominiums’ courtyard in April. The construction site’s unique figures, textures and lighting all appealed to the longtime photographer. But it was the team of about 15 workers who captivated him most.
“Being somebody looking from the outside, seeing what, at first, looked like controlled chaos, I then realized that everybody knows where to go … the teamwork is amazing,” Moss said. “Spying on them from afar, there’s a camaraderie, a real teamwork.”
His photos capture the hard work and heavy metal of a construction site as workers haul wood planks and scaffolding, operate the gritty landscape’s heavy machinery, and don matching hard hats and reflective vests to work as a coordinated team.
“It’s very skilled, dangerous, hot and sweaty work, but they just do what has to be done,” he said. “These are almost all Latino immigrants, who some people would like locked up and expelled. But apparently we don’t mind them doing our dirty work.”
Especially during a time of surging immigration enforcement across the country and in Arlington, Moss hopes his work helps others see the humanity in migrant communities, as he has with the crew.
“We’re all just people trying to get through life, and just because you came from another place doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to exist or to thrive,” Moss said. “We shouldn’t be demonizing people, and we shouldn’t be treating people cruelly.”
Over time, the photographer said his frequent visits fostered a real “human connection” between him and the crew.
Nowadays when he arrives, the workers meet him with waves, thumbs-ups or poses — some of which are captured in his portfolio.
“I chatted with one guy and I showed him on the phone, I said, here,” Moss said. “He’s like, ‘Oh, that’s my uncle,’ and ‘oh, that’s my brother,’ so I think they were pleased.”
One day, the photographer plans to take some of the workers to lunch. Until then, he’ll continue to show up to the site with his Canon DSLR.
Phase II of the UrbA project is slated to wrap up in May 2027.
