Post, and Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the first American landscape designers. The Special Committee on Parks was formed to survey possible sites for the proposed large park. One of the first sites considered was Jones's Wood, a tract of land between 66th and 75th Streets on the Upper East Side. The area was occupied by multiple wealthy families who objected to the taking of their land, particularly the Jones and Schermerhorn families. Downing stated that he would prefer a park of at least at any location from 39th Street to the Harlem River. Following the passage of an 1851 bill to acquire Jones's Wood, the Schermerhorns and Joneses successfully obtained an injunction to block the acquisition, and the transaction was invalidated as unconstitutional. The second site proposed for a large public park was a area labeled "Central Park", bounded by 59th and 106th Streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues. The Central Park plan gradually gained support from a variety of groups. After a second bill to acquire Jones's Wood was nullified, the New York State Legislature passed the Central Park Act in July 1853; the act authorized a board of five commissioners to start purchasing land for a park, and it created a Central Park Fund to raise money. In the years prior to the acquisition of Central Park, the Seneca Village community was referred to in pejorative terms, including racial slurs. Park advocates and the media began to describe Seneca Village and other communities in this area as "shantytowns" and the residents there as "squatters" and "vagabonds and scoundrels"; the Irish and Black residents were often described as "wretched" and "debased". The residents of Seneca Village were also accused of stealing food and operating illegal bars. The village's detractors included Egbert Ludovicus Viele, the park's first engineer, who wrote a report about the "refuge of five thousand squatters" living on the future site of Central Park, criticizing the residents as people with "very little knowledge of the English language, and with very little respect for the law". While a minority of Seneca Village's residents were landowners, most residents had formal or informal agreements with landlords; only a few residents were actual squatters with no permission from any landlord. Razing In 1853, the Central Park commissioners started conducting property assessments on more than 34,000 lots in and near Central Park. The Central Park commissioners had completed their assessments by