"Nadar's superiority to his colleagues is shown by his attempt to take photographs in the Paris sewer system: for the first time, the lens was deemed capable of making discoveries."

The presentation of photography as a technology, a triumph of science, the capture of life/light.

"Wiertz can be characterized as the first to demand, if not actually forsee, the use of photographic montage for political agitation."

"Baudelaire's genius, which is nourished on melancholy, is an allegorical genius... Paris becomes the subject of lyric poetry."

"The chthonic elements of the city- its topographic formations, the old abandoned bed of the Seine- have evidently found in him a mold."

"The worker produces capital; capital produces him- hence, he produces himself. The worker exists as a worker only when he exists for himself as capital; and he exists as capital only when some capital exists for him. The existence of capital is his existence..." Marx (from convolute X)

Benjamin tries to get closer to his own era by examining and developing a intimate relationship with the eras preceeding it.
In this way, the present time is "named" not only by current events, but by past events also. Current, present time is given shape like a meso-american deity is given shape- its many attributes are assigned with an eye for how contradiction and confluence, interference and harmony are going to create new, meta-attributes through their interaction.