<P> Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1962, which in April 2017 placed it on the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage sites . The park, managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public - private partnership . The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Park's $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843 - acre park . </P> <P> Between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population . As the city expanded northward up Manhattan Island, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city . Since Central Park was not part of the original Commissioners' Plan of 1811, John Randel, Jr., surveyed the grounds . The only remaining surveying bolt from his survey is embedded in a rock located north of the present Dairy and the 65th Street Transverse, and south of Center Drive . The bolt marks the location where West 65th Street would have intersected Sixth Avenue . </P> <P> New York City's need for a great public park was resounded by the famed poet and editor of the Evening Post (now the New York Post), William Cullen Bryant, as well as by the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who predicted and began to publicize the city's need for a public park in 1844 . A stylish place for open - air driving, similar to Paris' Bois de Boulogne or London's Hyde Park, was felt to be needed by many influential New Yorkers, and, after an abortive attempt in 1850--1851 to designate Jones's Wood, in 1853 the New York legislature settled upon a 700 - acre (280 ha) area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the park, at a cost of more than US $5 million for the land . </P> <P> The state appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, and in 1857 the commission held a landscape design contest . Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed what came to be known as the "Greensward Plan", which was selected as the winning design . According to Olmsted, the park was "of great importance as the first real Park made in this country--a democratic development of the highest significance ...", a view probably inspired by his various trips to Europe during 1850 (he had visited several parks during these trips and was particularly impressed by Birkenhead Park and Derby Arboretum in England). The Greensward Plan called for some 36 bridges, all designed by Vaux, ranging from rugged spans of Manhattan schist or granite, to lacy Neo-Gothic cast iron; no two are alike . The ensemble of the formal line of the Mall's doubled allées of elms culminating at Bethesda Terrace, whose centerpiece is the Bethesda Fountain, with a composed view beyond of lake and woodland, was at the heart of the larger design . Execution of the Greensward Plan was the responsibility of a number of individuals, including Jacob Wrey Mould (architect), Ignaz Anton Pilat (master gardener), George E. Waring, Jr. (engineer), and Andrew Haswell Green (politician), in addition to Olmsted and Vaux . </P>

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