The park was not part of the Plan of the Commissioners of 1811; however, between 1821 and 1855 the New York metropolitan area quadrupled its population. As the city had expanded, people had few open spaces to go to and went mainly to the cemeteries to get away from the noisy and chaotic life of the city. Shortly thereafter, the need for New York City to have a large public park was expressed by the poet and editor of the then Evening Post (now the New York Post), William Cullen Bryant, and by the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who began publicizing the city's need for a public park in 1844. A fancy place for outdoor riding, like the Bois de Boulogne in Paris or Hyde Park in London, was the reason why which many influential New Yorkers supported the idea, and in 1853 the New York State Legislature gave 1.5 square miles, the area between 59th and 110th Streets, for the park's creation, and imposed a maximum budget of $5 million. Dollars.

wikipedia.org