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Dream meeting his sister Death in Washington Square Park is very fitting as one of the original uses of the park was as a potter’s field. A potter’s field, paupers' grave, or common grave is a place for burying those whose bodies remain unclaimed, unknown, or for the poor or non-believers when they die.

When New York went through yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, most of those who died from the fever were also buried there.

Interestingly, records of only one public hanging at the potter's field exist. Two eyewitnesses to the recorded hanging differed on the location of the gallows. One said it had been put up where the fountain was before the 2007 park redesign. Others placed the gallows closer to where the arch is now. However, the cemetery was closed in 1825, and to this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies currently rest under Washington Square.