Potter's Field

2 Stories

When Homeless Pal Dies, Woman Pays to Bury Him

Bank worker saved 'Smokey' from mass burial in Potter's Field

(Newser) - His name was Smokey, and Juanita Vega woke him up every day for 11 years. In return, he called her "sis" and gave her tchotchkes that he found—a sweet friendship between a homeless man and an employee at the New York City bank where he slept in the...

Living Fight to Visit Island Filled With NYC's Dead

A look at NYC's Potter's Field

(Newser) - It's been years since a journalist has been permitted to set foot on New York's Potter's Field, where nearly a million poor and unwanted people have been buried since 1869, one aside and atop the next, in plain caskets loaded into football field-length trenches. That is until...

2 Stories