A big-hearted Manhattan woman shelled out $2,000 so a deceased, homeless man didn’t end up in an unmarked city grave.
For more than a decade, 51-year-old Juanita Vega would see Richard Coleman asleep in the vestibule of the Upper East Side bank where she worked.
Coleman passed away on April 16 at the age of 62 and — with no next-of-kin to claim him — was ticketed for Potter’s Field on Hart Island, the public graveyard where unknowns and unclaimed remains are laid to rest.
“He was nice, he wasn’t a bad person,” Vega told The Post on Monday. “Not everyone is fortunate enough to have family members or next-of-kin. I just felt bad for him and wanted to do something about it.”
The bank employee’s boyfriend, Tom Valek, just happens to be a funeral director at Krtil Funeral Home in the Upper East Side. He was able to cut through red tape with the Medical Examiner to get Coleman’s remains released to the two of them.
Vega put up the cash and Krtil arranged a simple, but dignified, send off at Rosemount Memorial Park in Elizabeth, NJ, last Thursday.
The bank employee said it was the least she could do. Coleman never uttered an ugly word when employees, opening up in the morning, would ask him to move.
“He would say `Sis, no problem’ and he’d get up and get a move on,” Vega said.
“I might see him later in the afternoon at lunch, and he’d say, `Hey sis, how you doing?’ He didn’t bother anyone.”
Vega said she never pushed Coleman for his background and how he ended up on the street.
In past chats, Coleman had told her he was once married – to a woman named “Shelly” — and had four kids.