Politics and the Park [ 149 ] taking of the central park, the original Jones's Wood bill had no provision for recouping any part of its cost through a benefit assessment. Rather, the cost of its acquisition and improvement was to be borne by the city taxpayers as a whole, even though it was clear that the small number of adjoining property owners would profit greatly from its construction.44 This was offensive to a number of residents, and as a result, many of them lobbied earnestly for the bill's defeat. Accordingly, on April 11,1854, the full legislature voted to repeal the act that had authorized the taking of Jones's Wood, thus finally ending the long struggle regarding the park's location first initiated by Bryant nearly ten years earlier. With the possibility that it would ever become a public park now gone, Jones's Wood soon became prey to real estate speculators. For a brief period a resort hotel operated out of an old mansion on the site. Then, but three years after the state's action, the New York Evening Times reported: "Jones' Woods... fairly comes into market to-day for City lots ... at least 350 lots, scattered over and through the famous Woods! are to be offered by Mr. Bleecker to-day, at the Exchange, to the highest bidder!'45 One would think that with the elimination of the east side site from consideration, the city could now proceed in an unencumbered fashion to acquire and construct the central park. Even before the Jones's Wood site was eliminated, however, forces were being marshaled for another skirmish. Encouraged by the reservation that Mayor Westervelt had ex- pressed2 those who in the past had opposed a park found their hopes reinvigorated. In addition, some of those who in the past had enthusiastically endorsed the idea of a park were beginning to develop cold feet as it became apparent from the early work of the commissioners of estimate that the originally estimated cost of $1.4 million would more than likely be trebled.46 Finally, these two groups were joined by a number of concerned residents who owned property within or near the southern boundary of the park. Together, in the early part of 1854, they initiated a movement to cut back the boundaries and substantially reduce the size of the park. 44 Board of Commissioners of Central Park, First Annual Report, 88-97. iSNew York Evening Times, April 21,1857, as cited in Stokes, Iconography, V, 1868. 46 Edward Dana Durand, The Finances of New York City (New York, 1898), 99-100.