141
" Away from the water, in the plaza behind the World Financial Center, was a small semienclosed space consisting of a fountain, plant beds with rushes, and two marble walls, one higher than the other. The walls were inscribed, and on the lower wall was a plaque: DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE MEMBERS OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WHO LOST THIER LIVES IN SERVICE TO THE PWOPLE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. On the other wall, there was a list, with dozens of names on it. At the very top was the first entry - PTL. JAMES CAHILL. SEPTEMBER 29,1854, It went on like that through the years, one entry after the other, rank, name, date of death; there was the expected, disheartening cluster in the fall of 2001, then a few others who died in the years that followed. Below that was a vast, blank face of polished marble, awaiting those among the living who would die in uniform, and the not yet born, who would be born, grow up to be police officers, and be killed doing that work. "
― Teju Cole , Open City
151
" It was from him, and from this picture in particular, that Henri Cartier-Bresson had developed the ideal of the decisive moment. Photography seemed to me, as I stood there in the white gallery with its rows of pictures and its press of murmuring spectators, an uncanny art like no other. One moment, in all of history, was captured, but the moments before and after it disappeared into the onrush of time; only that selected moment itself was privileged, saved, for no other reason than its having been picked out by the camera’s eye. "
― Teju Cole , Open City
160
" The fratricidal Yoruba wars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a great boost to the transatlantic traffic in human beings. There were constant skirmishes between the Ijebus, the Egbas, the Ekitis, the Oyos, the Ibadans, and many other Yoruba groups. Some of the smaller groups might even have been wiped out from history, as the larger ones enlarged their territory and consolidated their power. The vanquished were brought from the interior to the coast and sold to the people of Lagos and to communities along the network of lagoons stretching westward to Ouidah. And they in turn arranged the auctions at which the English, the Portuguese, and the Spanish loaded up their barracoons and slave ships. Some of these intertribal wars were waged for the express purpose of supplying slaves to traders. At thirty-five British pounds for each healthy adult male, it was a lucrative business. "
― Teju Cole , Every Day Is for the Thief