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Better New York Foundation
The police symbolize how some abusers pose as defenders of their victims—sometimes even convincing the victims themselves to act against their best interests. In the novel’s universe, great cities can become alive and sentient, at which point they choose one or more of their residents as avatars to represent and defend them. In one of the novel’s first scenes, New York City’s avatar, a homeless young Black man, sees a police officer and wills himself invisible, indicating that police officers—who are supposed to protect and serve the city—are in fact a threat to the city’s residents. Then Paolo—the avatar of São Paolo—warns New York City’s avatar that an enemy of cities from a parallel dimension, the Woman in White, will send her underlings “among the city’s parasites.” Shortly afterward, a tourist falsely accuses New York City’s avatar of stealing a purse, leading two police officers to merge into a single eldritch creature and attack him.
This sequence of scenes underscores the novel’s claim that police officers are “parasites” on the living organisms of cities—that is, they end up harming the cities they claim to defend. This dynamic of abusive policemen becomes even clearer with the introduction of police officer Matthew Houlihan, the father of Staten Island’s avatar, Aislyn Houlihan. Under the guise of protecting Aislyn from the dangers of the big city, Matthew controls her, berates her, monitors how much she drives, and may even have hidden a GPS tracker in her car. The novel does not claim that all police officers abuse their power or harm the city—toward the novel’s end, one female police officer mistakes Paolo and Manhattan’s avatar Manny as authorized personnel and aids them because “those who would help protect the city see what they need to see”—but in general, the novel uses police officers to show how abusers can hide their controlling, abusive behavior by claiming that they are defending or protecting their victims.
Police Quotes in The City We Became
The The City We Became quotes below all refer to the symbol of Police. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
I am Manhattan, he thinks again, this time in a slow upwelling of despair. Every murderer. Every slave broker. Every slumlord who shut off the heat and froze children to death. Every stockbroker who got rich off war and suffering.
It’s only the truth. He doesn’t have to like it, though.
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Chapter 3
Quotes
“Just getting sick of these immigrants,” he says. He’s always careful to use acceptable words when he’s on the job, rather than the words he says at home. That’s how cops mess up, he has explained to her. They don’t know how to keep home words at home and work words at work.
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Chapter 4
Quotes
So when she’d seen this man step out of the crumbling entryway of an old building shell, with a smirk on his lips and his hand prominently resting on the handle of his gun, she’d felt like she does now, fiftyish years later in an art center bathroom. She’d felt bigger. Beyond fear or anger. She’d gone to the doorway, of course. Then she grabbed its sides to brace herself, and kicked in his knee. He’d spent three months in traction, claiming he’d slipped on a brick, and never messed with her again. Six years later, having bought her own pair of steel-toed boots, Bronca had done the same thing to a police informant at Stonewall—another time she’d been part of something bigger.
Bigger. As big as the whole goddamn borough.
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Chapter 14
Quotes
“I know an apology don’t make up for it […] I know it don’t, okay? I damn sure got called a dyke enough myself just for stepping into a ring that dude rappers thought was theirs by default. Motherfuckers tried to rape me, all because I didn’t fit into what they thought a woman should be—and I passed that shit on. I know I did. But I got better. I had some friends slap some sense into me, and I listened when they did. And I figured out that the dudes were fucked in the head, so maybe it wasn’t the best idea to imitate them.”
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Get the entire The City We Became LitChart as a printable PDF.
Police Symbol Timeline in The City We Became
The timeline below shows where the symbol Police appears in The City We Became. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue: See, What Had Happened Was
...sing the city.” He hears a strange echo and a “growl” that reminds him of police sirens, which he dislikes.
(full context)
...sandwich and fantasizing about having a place to sleep with food in it when a police officer enters the café. The avatar visualizes “mirrors around [his own] head” that repels the...
(full context)
...in them indefinitely unless you do something objectionable—and reads. When he leaves, he sees two police officers on the street whose shadows are moving unnaturally. They begin following the avatar. When...
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Chapter 1: Starting with Manhattan, and the Battle of FDR Drive
...she has an emergency car kit. She says yes and tells him to act fast—the police will arrive soon and “they’re not gonna help much.” Intuitively, Manny asks her whether she’s...
(full context)
Chapter 2: Showdown in the Last Forest
...pavement but not around the memorial rock, tugs Bel toward it. The woman calls the police and tells them Manny and Bel are drug dealers having public sex. She identifies them...
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The woman informs Manny and Bel that the police are on their way. She tells them that she didn’t relocate to New York for...
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...and Bel were drug dealers, she wouldn’t have confronted them—instead, he suggests she called the police on them because they were “comfortable and unafraid” in public. On her phone, he finds—and...
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Chapter 3: Our Lady of (Staten) Aislyn
...person grabs her; she scratches that person and flees the ferry. As Aislyn runs, a police officer yells at her. Though her father (Matthew Houlihan) has told her “only criminals run,”...
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...he’s tired of “immigrants,” which Aislyn knows is a euphemism—he’s said in the past that police officers get in trouble when they “don’t know how to keep home words at home...
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Matthew, still talking, mentions he heard something over police radio about a woman matching Aislyn’s description but says he finds it hard to believe...
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...trying to intimate Aislyn on “her island” and gets ready to threaten to call the police.
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Chapter 4: Boogie-Down Bronca and the Bathroom Stall of Doom
...knee. He ended up in the hospital. Bronca also remembers kicking the knee of “a police informant at Stonewall.” She compares the sensations she felt at these times to the sensations...
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Chapter 9: A Better New York Is in Sight
Keyholders come downstairs to check on Bronca and Veneza. Bronca tells them to call the police and says she’ll retrieve the Center’s security footage. Veneza insists on making a copy, since...
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Chapter 10: Make Staten Island Grate Again(st São Paolo)
...When her father says no, Aislyn senses he’s lying, though Conall doesn’t seem like a police officer to her. Conall says he and Matthew are working on a “hobby,” and both...
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At Aislyn’s house, Matthew and Conall are talking to the police outside. No one notices Aislyn return to her bedroom. Through her window, she hears Conall...
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As Aislyn sleeps, police and city staff investigate gouges like giant claw marks breaking Staten Island’s subway tracks. While...
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Chapter 14: The Gauntlet of Second Avenue
...“feminist liberal nonsense” because “it’s okay to be a white man.” Bronca speculates that the police won’t stop them and may target counter-protestors. She also thinks this demonstration of public racism...
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...the car, which shields it from the next Starbucks attack and seems to prevent the police from noticing her speeding.
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Chapter 15: “And lo, the Beast looked upon the face of Beauty”
...and Paolo at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall subway stop. Manny expects trouble when he sees police, some infected by tendrils, at the entrance; he hears them talking about a bomb threat....
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...take Aislyn with them by force. Aislyn is sputtering at them that her father’s a police officer when the Woman in White blocks Brooklyn and Bronca’s way and summons a doorway....
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