By the 1840s, members of the city's elite were publicly calling for the construction of a new large park in Manhattan.[30] At the time, Manhattan's seventeen squares comprised a combined 165 acres (67 ha) of land, the largest of which was the 10-acre (4 ha) Battery Park at Manhattan island's southern tip.[34] These plans were endorsed by New York Evening Post editor William Cullen Bryant,[35][36][37] and by Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the first American landscape designers.[35][37][38]