Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The City We Became, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cities and Gentrification
Community, Diversity, and Prejudice
Ethics and Nature
Beliefs, Concepts, and Stereotypes
Art
Abuse
Summary
Analysis
Bronca dislikes the other embodied boroughs. She remembers Brooklyn as MC Free, whose lyrics included “homophobic bullshit,” and notes that Brooklyn won’t sit down in Bronca’s unkempt office. Initially, she thinks Manny is Lenape, but once she realizes he makes “every ethnic group” believe something similar, she compares him to a deceitful Dutch colonizer stealing Canarsee land. Bronca is suspicious of Padmini’s “innocence,” meanwhile, because it doesn’t fit with her idea of Queens. She acknowledges to herself—and embraces—that disliking the other boroughs is Bronx-like.
This passage illustrates that embodying the concepts of their respective boroughs won’t necessarily help the protagonists get along. Bronca’s dislike and suspicion of the others is quintessentially the Bronx, after all. The passage also reveals possible negative interpretations of Brooklyn, Manny, and Padmini that the reader hasn’t heard before. Brooklyn’s old music, which Manny and Bel loved, actually included “homophobic bullshit.” Manny’s racial ambiguity—which tends to make people think he's whatever race they are, and which Padmini interpreted as representative of Manhattan’s complex past with race and immigration—may actually be a tool Manny uses to get people to trust him so he can take advantage of them, like Dutch colonizers took advantage of the Canarsee, the Lenape from whom the Dutch “bought” Manhattan. Padmini, meanwhile, seems gormless.
Themes
Bronca says that since she defeated the Woman in White herself, she doesn’t need them. When Manny asks why she wouldn’t help them protect the city, she replies that she fights alone or with loyal allies. She asks whether he would “walk through fire” for her. Brooklyn interjects that the “fire” has already arrived, and Bronca snaps that Brooklyn wouldn’t urinate on her to douse that fire. Padmini, bewildered, asks whether the others have already met, since there seems to be “bad blood” between them. Brooklyn says that’s the Bronx—always blaming the other boroughs for its inability to use its resources well. Bronca tells Brooklyn to get out of her office. When Manny tries convincing Bronca to change her mind, she yells at them all to leave—and they do.
Bronca’s concept of community requires loyalty. Although Bronca hasn’t met the other embodied boroughs before, she reacts to them as if they’ve already been disloyal—which suggests that her feelings and stereotypes about Manhattan, Brooklyn (the borough), and Queens are driving her reactions to Manny, Brooklyn (the woman), and Padmini. Brooklyn stereotypes Bronca in turn when she claims that Bronca is acting exactly how the Bronx always does—blaming the other boroughs for its problems.
Themes
Veneza comes into the office and looks at Bronca, who admits she feels too old and frightened to do this. Veneza asks whether she should tell Brooklyn, Manny, and Padmini to come back later. Bronca tells Veneza to ask them for an hour. Rather than leave right away, Veneza says Bronca taught her to love New York City. When Bronca claims to hate the city, Veneza points out that New Yorkers always complain about the city but never want to leave. Then, every so often, they have quintessential New York experiences, and it “glows” from them. Bronca thinks Veneza would have made a wonderful daughter—and is a wonderful friend. Believing Veneza’s love for the city is motive enough to save it, Bronca reiterates that she needs an hour. Then she’ll work with the others. Veneza leaves to tell Brooklyn, Manny, and Padmini.
Alone with her friend Veneza, Bronca can be vulnerable enough to admit that she’s hostile to the other boroughs in part because she’s scared of the battle she must fight. Veneza, in turn, offers Bronca a reason to fight: a reminder that she, the others, and all their fellow New Yorkers love the city, whose essence “glows” from them when they experience it. The understanding and support that Veneza offers Bronca illustrates the value of friendship and community at a time when Bronca’s community is asking a great deal of her.
Themes
Talking to Brooklyn, Manny, and Padmini, Bronca realizes how little they know relative to her—the one “given to know the history”—and becomes less angry about their confusion and tardy arrival. She and Veneza take them to the staff break room. There, Bronca tells them they need to find Staten Island and New York City’s avatar. Brooklyn, glancing at Manny, repeats that the sixth avatar is real. When Bronca asks whether they really didn’t know, Manny replies that they only knew about him through the Woman in White and a vision they had.
When Bronca sits down and has a conversation with the other embodied boroughs, she realizes she was judging them too harshly—a reminder that applying stereotypes to people is a poor replacement for interacting with them if one actually wants to understand them. Her realization that she has a particular skill they need—she’s “given to know the history”—illustrates the different strengths a diverse group of people can bring to a community.
Themes
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When Manny asks how Bronca has this knowledge, she explains it’s supposed to come to the city’s avatar at its birth—but, since New York has six avatars, the knowledge only came to Bronca. She explains that each borough will have “unique skills” based on the “different strengths” it brings to the city—the Bronx, the “ancestral land” of the Lenape and thus the most historical borough, got the skill of historical knowledge.
This passage makes explicit that each borough’s avatar is bringing “unique skills” to the group, which are derived from the essence or stereotype of their borough—a fact that emphasizes how diverse individual members can strengthen a community.
Themes
Manny tells Bronca that the self-portrait downstairs exactly represents the vision he had of New York City’s avatar. When Bronca asks whether he knows where the avatar is, Manny says no—if he did, he would be with him: “I am supposed to protect him.” Brooklyn suggests that protecting the avatar may be Manny’s special purpose. Bronca tells the others they may need Staten Island to find the avatar, but regardless, they’ll need to enter “cityspace.” Padmini asks whether, when she sees herself and the embodied boroughs as cities, they’re really traveling to another reality. Bronca tells her that she’s seeing both a “representation of this world” and a “world in itself.”
That Manny’s unique skill or special purpose is to protect New York City’s avatar again implies that Manhattan (the borough) is more closely tied to the city’s essence or stereotype than the other boroughs are. The description of “cityspace” as a “representation of this world” and a “world in itself” reminds the reader that in this novel, multiple parallel realities exist—and also implies that art is so important because it can represent and thus create new worlds.
Themes
Bronca explains to the others that humans’ beliefs, imaginations, hopes, and lies all create new realities. Then she tells the others that city births “smash[] through” layers of reality, because cities are places where “reality and legends” intersect.
This passage again suggests that, in the novel’s world, art literally creates new realities through the power of the artists’ imagination—which explains why art is so important to New York City and to several of the avatars: by adding “legends” to “reality,” art and storytelling help create the conditions for the city’s birth.
Themes
Manny tells Bronca that when he first came to New York, he saw damage, and when he became Manhattan, he lost his memory. All the boroughs experienced something similar at the city’s birth, during the battle. Manny speculates the battle caused his memory loss and suggests if he hadn’t killed the tendrils on FDR Drive, they would have killed him. Given that damage to the city hurts the avatars, Manny wants to know whether the city in turn dies if its avatars die. Bronca replies: “More like explodes.”
Throughout the story, the tendrils have been associated with gentrification, homogenization, and racial bigotry. Until the point, the novel has not made clear what happens if the tendrils “win”—if they succeed in gentrifying, homogenizing, and destroying the city’s diverse community. Now the reader learns that the tendrils’ success means mass destruction.
Themes
Bronca explains that anytime and anywhere there’s a city, if its occupants “tell enough stories about it” and “develop a unique enough culture,” it begins to gestate. Close to the moment of its birth, it picks an avatar who helps it through the birthing process. If the birth succeeds, the city is protected from the Enemy. But if the Enemy sabotages the birth before it’s complete, for example by killing the avatar, the city dies. Bronca names Pompeii, Tenochtitlán, and Atlantis as examples of dead cities—Atlantis having died so horribly that humanity “shifted into branches of reality in which Atlantis never existed at all.”
Bronca’s explanation suggests that what, in the novel’s view, makes cities great is mythmaking (inhabitants who “tell enough stories about” the city) and “a unique enough culture”—or, in other words, a culture that adds to the diversity among cities. Thus imagination and diversity are the two great urban values in the novel. Pompeii was an ancient Roman city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 C..E; Tenochtitlán was an Aztec city destroyed by Spanish invaders circa 1521 C.E. Atlantis is a mythological lost city; cleverly, the novel uses the science-fiction conceit of parallel dimensions to explain the origins of the Atlantis myth.
Themes
When the others react with horror, Bronca reassures them that New York City’s avatar succeeded in protecting New York during its birth—but, while the avatar succeeded, he used too much strength to do so and fell into a quasi-coma. The embodied boroughs must find him so that he can protect the city. Bronca concludes, “We’re not supposed to do this alone.”
Bronca’s concluding statement, “We’re not supposed to do this alone,” emphasizes the importance of teamwork and community in a novel about urban communities.
Themes
Brooklyn restates Bronca’s claim that a city’s birth smashes through realities and asks what happens to those realities. Bronca explains that a city’s gestation and birth annihilate “hundreds or thousands of closely related” realities and all their inhabitants.
The shocking revelation that city’s births destroy parallel dimensions explains why the Woman in White keeps calling the city’s avatars dangerous. Given the mass death living cities cause, the Woman in White’s hatred of cities and desire to destroy them suddenly becomes understandable. Interestingly, Bronca earlier told Veneza that she didn’t know why the Woman in White hated their reality, even though Bronca already knew that living cities destroy neighboring realities. Either Bronca was lying to Veneza or she doesn’t understand the Woman’s motivations.
Themes
Padmini is horrified. Manny asks whether she would rather everyone she knew in their own reality died instead. After a long pause, Padmini shakes her head. Bronca reflects that although Padmini seems young, she embodies Queens, which contains refugees and exploited workers. She understands “brutal choices and unavoidable sacrifice.” Padmini tells Manny that no, she wouldn’t rather everyone she knew died instead, but the situation still makes her angry.
This passage suggests that, once a city begins to be born, “sacrifice” really is “unavoidable”: either the city’s birth fails and all its inhabitants die, or the city’s birth succeeds and neighboring dimensions die. This bit of the novel’s mythology suggests a view of nature as an unavoidably “brutal,” death-filled place. Bronca believes that Padmini can understand and accept the brutality and ethical ambiguity of the situation because such concepts are essential to Queens.
Themes
Bronca tells them it’s “nature” for some to die ensuring the lives of others. The living have a responsibility to those who died to fight for survival. Padmini and Veneza’s horrified reactions make Bronca reflect that city people tend not to know where their food comes from. She remembers her ex-husband taking her hunting. Though Bronca refused to kill deer herself, her ex-husband and their hunting partners insisted Bronca contribute to butchering the deer. They told her that she needed to understand that she lived because others died and to kill only as much as necessary. Bronca suspects that Manny, Brooklyn, and New York City’s avatar all understand this principle in a way Padmini and Veneza don’t.
Bronca’s claim that the city’s avatars should fight for survival to honor those who died for them suggest that New York City’s birth already destroyed neighboring dimensions—and so the Woman in White’s plan to destroy New York City will only lead to more death, not to saving some lives. Bronca’s comparison of city births to hunting may lead the reader to wonder, however, whether it’s always necessary that cities’ births destroy neighboring dimensions. After all, human beings don’t actually need to hunt and eat meat to survive; in the contemporary world, vegetarians do just fine. Could there be a vegetarian equivalent to a city’s birth, one that doesn’t involve mass death in neighboring dimensions? Bronca doesn’t seem to consider the question. Her thoughts do suggest that violent survivalism is more essential to the concept of some parts of New York (Manhattan, Brooklyn, the city as a whole) than others (Queens, the Jersey suburbs).
Themes
Manny asks Bronca what they should do next. Bronca says they need to find Staten Island. Brooklyn says their previous method, searching for strange events on social media, hasn’t given them any leads. She suggests they could rent cars and drive around Staten Island waiting for their “city-dar” to find the missing avatar—or they could look for New York City’s avatar, who seems more important and more vulnerable. Since Staten Island is surviving, its avatar has probably figured out how to protect herself from the Woman in White. Though leaving Staten Island to fend for herself bothers Padmini, Manny wants to try to find New York City’s avatar immediately.
Bronca’s insistence that all five embodied boroughs need to come together to protect the city shows the importance of community to the novel’s mythos. On the other hand, Brooklyn’s lack of urgent interest in finding Staten Island’s avatar suggests she doesn’t see Staten Island as a true part of the New York City community—that the Woman in White was deploying a stereotype with at least some truth in it when she told Aislyn Staten Island was the “forgotten” and “despised” borough. Padmini’s unease at abandoning Staten Island hints that leaving Aislyn alone for so long may have been a tactical mistake, while Manny’s desire to find New York City’s avatar highlights once again Manny/Manhattan’s special, intense relationship to the city and its avatar.
Themes
Bronca tells the other embodied boroughs to use whatever technique helps them to enter cityspace. Padmini does math, and Brooklyn freestyles to herself, but Manny isn’t sure what to do—he admits he enters cityspace instinctively, whenever he’s “feeling New Yorkish.” Brooklyn points out that it also happens when he thinks about New York City’s avatar. When Manny says he’s not sure what that means, Bronca tells him to ask the avatar out once they’ve saved the avatar from his coma—which makes Manny laugh and become less self-conscious. Bronca reflects on the value of Stonewall.
This passage associates math (hard work, intelligence) with Queens, art (music, creativity) with Brooklyn, and a nebulous “New Yorkishness” with Manhattan—which suggests that unlike the other boroughs, which have their own preoccupations, Manhattan is conceptually defined by its love of the New York City as a whole. That Manny is sexually attracted to New York City’s avatar—an attraction Bronca’s suggestion about a post-coma date makes explicit—strengthens this suggestion. By remembering Stonewall, the 1969 pro-LGBT protests in which Bronca participated, Bronca is reflecting with pleasure that her fighting for the marginalized has had some effect: New York City has become a more accepting place for people of diverse sexualities, and Manny feels better, not worse, when his same-sex desire is explicitly acknowledged.
Themes
Bronca encourages them all to enter cityspace. Soon she sees herself as the Bronx, Manny as Manhattan, Padmini as Queens, and Brooklyn as Brooklyn (the borough). When they look for Staten Island, they find her and perceive that though she’s “different” and “reluctant” she’s also “truly New York.” Yet they have difficulty seeing her, when Manny tries to touch her, she flinches away.
Thus far, Aislyn has proven herself “different” from the other avatars in myriad ways—one of them being that she’s racist and xenophobic. The novel may implicitly be asking: can a diverse community tolerate intolerant members like Aislyn? That Aislyn flinches from Manny, meanwhile, reminds readers both of her racist fear of non-white men and her arguably legitimate fear of men in general after Conall sexually assaulted her.
Themes
Bronca guides the others through a change of perspective until they’re looking at all realities. This multiverse looks like a giant tree. As they marvel at it, they see branches falling from the tree—realities dying—as a city that looks like a tiny light is born. “Thousands” of lights decorate the multiverse tree.
This passage serves to illustrate and verify what Bronca has already revealed to the other avatars: multiple realities really do exist, and city births really do destroy whole branches of reality. If “thousands” of living cities are decorating the multiverse, then thousands upon thousands of neighboring realities and their inhabitants have been annihilated by cities.
Themes
Bronca zooms in on New York, and they see New York City’s avatar sleeping on newspapers. Bronca hears Manny think, “I would do anything for him,” and the other boroughs echo his thought with the sentiment that they and the avatar belong to each other. When the boroughs realize they’re hearing each other’s thoughts, they start to panic, but Bronca redirects them by asking: “Where?” Her perspective changes, and they see walls covered in white tiles, which Bronca recognizes. Then the avatar’s eye opens. He communicates with them via thought that they’re getting closer to him, and they feel themselves falling into his mouth.
Given Manny’s mysterious, violent past, his resolution to do “anything” for New York City’s avatar may seem disturbing and ethically problematic as well as romantic. Yet the boroughs’ group recognition that they belong to one another suggest that they—minus Aislyn—are truly beginning to come together as a community. That Bronca recognizes the tiles near the avatar’s hiding place, meanwhile, suggests that her knowledge of art (in this case, architecture) may come in handy in saving the city.
Themes
Veneza shakes Bronca awake. Bronca finds herself on the Center’s staff meeting room couch. Manny, Padmini, and Brooklyn are waking up around the room. Suddenly, a 50-something Asian man (Hong) wearing a suit walks in carrying an unconscious man (Paolo). When Brooklyn tries to call emergency services, the suited man tells her ordinary medical attention can’t help a city. The suited man puts the other man down on a sofa. Bronca notes that the unconscious man has turned gray like an ancient TV set. She peeks into “cityspace” and sees a cord “like an umbilicus” attaching him to somewhere in South America.
The novel has emphasized the alienness and inhumanity of the Woman in White, in contrast with the novel’s protagonists. Yet this passage reminds the reader that city avatars, being embodied concepts, are no longer entirely human either: regular medicine can’t help them and when they’re truly injured, they resemble old technology more than a bleeding human body. What the strange parallels between the Woman in White and the living cities signify remains to be seen.
Themes
The suited man (Hong), noticing what Bronca is doing, comments that he supposes they aren’t completely useless but that none of them realized the unconscious man (Paolo) had been harmed in New York City. Padmini asks what happened, and Brooklyn asks who the suited man is. The suited man tells them to call him Hong, takes cigarettes and a lighter from the unconscious man, and comments that he previously believed the unconscious man was exaggerating how bad things were in New York. Manny mouths “Hong . . . Kong?” at the others.
The novel has focused primarily on New York City and the communities in New York City. Yet the appearance of Hong—Hong Kong’s avatar, presumably the international number Paolo was calling and texting in earlier scenes—gestures toward another, larger community: the global community of living cities. Given Hong’s anger that none of New York City’s avatars realized Paolo was hurt, the reader may suspect that this community of living cities comes with its own rules and expectations.
Themes
Hong lights a cigarette, mentions that he hates smoking, and exhales smoke onto the unconscious man (Paolo). Abruptly, the unconscious man changes from gray to “sepia.” When Manny suggests Hong try again, Hong says that it barely worked the first time—the man requires “the polluted air of his own city,” but it’s dangerous to go “through macrospace” and a flight would take a long time.
This passage again emphasizes the non-humanity of the city avatars: whereas cigarettes and “polluted air” harm ordinary human beings, cigarettes and pollution have conceptual power due to their stereotypical association with Paolo’s city; thus, they can heal him. Hong’s casual dismissal of Manny’s suggestion and his invocation of “macrospace”—a concept he doesn’t define and has no reason to believe New York City’s avatars understand—suggest that he doesn’t see them as equal members in the community of living cities.
Themes
When Veneza asks who the unconscious man is, Hong replies the man is São Paolo: “Who else could he be?” When Padmini asks how they’re supposed to know, Hong tells her contemptuously that São Paolo and New York are the only living cities “in this hemisphere.” Because São Paolo is the youngest city, he was supposed to help New York through the birth. When Padmini takes issue with Hong’s rudeness, he expresses anger that New York’s boroughs aren’t more worried about Paolo, who wounded him, or how they can retaliate against his attacker.
Hong’s contemptuous rhetorical question and rude explanations reveal his low opinion of New York City and its avatars. That São Paolo and New York City are the youngest living cities and the only living cities “in this hemisphere” hints at why: Hong may be prejudiced against them for their relative newness and geographical distance from the other cities. At the same time, though, Hong does seem genuinely concerned about Paolo.
Themes
Veneza, murmuring São Paolo’s name, starts poking through the staff room freezer. Meanwhile, Brooklyn suggests that the creature they call the Woman in White must have attacked Paolo, but Hong insists she didn’t. Bronca asks Hong how he knows. Hong claims that injuries like Paolo’s only occur when one city’s avatar steps inside another living city and the second city objects—so New York must have attacked Paolo. Manny points out that all the boroughs have been in the Center except—and then he cuts himself off, comprehension dawning.
The embodied boroughs’ ignorance about the rules of living cities—in this case, about the injuries one living city can inflict on another—emphasizes that they have not been inducted into the living cities’ community the way Paolo tried to induct New York City’s avatar. That one of the embodied boroughs—Aislyn—could have attacked Paolo without the other four knowing, meanwhile, emphasizes that New York City’s community is fractured.
Themes
Hong seems to conclude the boroughs aren’t simulating their horror. He points out that New York City has five boroughs, while the Center currently contains four boroughs and Veneza. Manny argues that Staten Island and São Paolo must have had a “misunderstanding,” since Staten Island’s one of them, but Brooklyn speculates that attacking São Paolo fits Staten Island’s MO: whereas the rest of the city votes Democrat and petitions for better public transportation, Staten Island votes for Republicans, favors cars, and agitated to keep tolls on the Verrazano Bridge high to discourage Brooklynites from visiting. When Manny points out that they need Staten Island to help the avatar, Bronca suggests they’ll have to persuade Staten Island to join them.
Manny’s insistence that Staten Island’s avatar and Paolo must have had a “misunderstanding” again emphasizes Manny’s love of and protectiveness toward New York City as a whole. Brooklyn’s response, by contrast, suggests why the other boroughs might distrust Staten Island: it persistently attempts to distinguish and separate itself from the rest of the community. (The Verrazano Bridge—or, properly, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge—connects Brooklyn (the borough) and Staten Island. The tolls to cross the bridge are unusually high.)
Themes
Hong says New York City’s situation is “worse than London” and speculates that Staten Island has betrayed the other boroughs because she’s realized the “danger.” Bronca begins to ask what Hong means when Veneza interrupts, pulling chocolate candies from the freezer. She explains they’re a Brazilian candy called brigadeiro, which the Portuguese side of her family eats “because yay colonialism.” She feeds Paolo a brigadeiro while speaking Portuguese, which returns him to a regular color and wakes him up. He thanks her in Portuguese and sits up.
When Paolo first called an international number (presumably Hong) early in the book, he compared New York City’s situation to London’s—but although Hong makes the same comparison, neither character has yet revealed what the similarity is. Disturbingly, Hong also mentions some “danger” to Staten Island and maybe the other boroughs—which hints that the Woman in White may not have been completely deceitful when she suggested joining New York City’s avatar and the other embodied boroughs would be bad for Aislyn somehow. Meanwhile, Veneza has mastered the art of conceptual/stereotypical thinking and realized that specifically Brazilian candies will give Paolo power.
Themes
Paolo asks Hong why he took so long to reach New York. Then he realizes Hong must have told the “Summit” about the situation and the Summit “balked.” Hong replies that the older cities dislike younger cities and find Paolo in particular “arrogant.” Paolo replies that he’s justified in disliking the older cities, because they are ignoring what’s going on in New York in favor of blaming Paolo’s performance.
This passage reveals fractures and prejudices in the community of living cities. Although neither Paolo nor Hong explains what the “Summit” is, context suggests it is a governing body for the living cities—and this governing body dislikes younger cities, which has led them to misjudge the perilous situation in New York City.
Themes
Hong finds a picture on his phone, tells the others it should worry them, and shows it to them. The photo is a picture of New York City, taken from the air, in which Staten Island looks more distant from the other boroughs than it should. Hong tells them that it’s unprecedented for part of a city to pull away from the rest in cityspace and for this action to affect “peoplespace” visibly. Paolo stands and says he's been trying to tell the other cities that the situation is unprecedented—the Enemy is acting strangely.
In this passage, Hong and Paolo reveal that New York City’s situation—and, in particular, the Woman in White’s behavior toward the city—is unheard-of. This revelation suggests that although Hong and Paolo are older, more experienced cities, they may not have the knowledge or even the right conceptual understanding of the situation to help the embodied boroughs’ save their city.
Themes
Hong asks Manny whether he and the others managed to find New York City’s avatar. When Manny says that they saw but couldn’t locate him, Bronca remembers she recognized the tiles in their vision. She leaves the room (with the others following), goes to her office, and sees Yijing has left her a note reading “600K in new donations!!.” Searching through a book in her office, Beaux Arts Century, she finds a photo of a tiled room and shows the others. Manny says the photo isn’t of the avatar’s sleeping place, though it has the same architectural style. Bronca explains that the room contains Guastavino tiles, part of an old New York-based architectural movement. Because many places that had Guastavino tiles have since been renovated, the tiles are only located in a few places throughout the city.
Yijing’s note to Bronca reminds the reader of the community support the Center has received after the Alt Artistes’ attack and thus of the power of community in general. Bronca’s revelation that the embodied boroughs may be able to locate New York City’s avatar by looking up which places have Guastavino tiles, meanwhile, demonstrates that in order to understand a city, a person must know its art (in this case, its architecture) and its history.
Themes
Veneza gets on Bronca’s computer and starts searching online for Guastavino tiles in Manhattan. Meanwhile, Manny starts flipping through Beaux Arts Century. In a few moments, they’ve both identified the avatar’s sleeping place as Old City Hall Station, a now-unused subway station. Brooklyn says that while people can’t usually enter the station, the Transit Museum occasionally gives tours—and she can use a favor she’s owed to get one. Hong says they’ll “have to hope” that, even without Staten Island, New York City’s avatar will get enough strength from eating the other four boroughs to save the city. Brooklyn, shocked, asks Hong what he means.
Just when the embodied boroughs thought they were making progress—they know where New York City’s avatar is and how to get there—they learn that the avatar needs to eat them. Previously, Matthew warned Aislyn that the city would eat her if she visited it, and Brooklyn told Manny the city would eat him alive if he let it. In retrospect, both moments look like foreshadowing of the danger New York City’s avatar poses to the embodied boroughs—a community devouring and annihilating the individuality of its various members.
Themes
