 In 1836, Peter Gerard Stuyvesant (1778–1847) – the great-great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant – and his wife Helen (or Helena) Rutherfurd reserved four acres of the Stuyvesant farm and sold it for a token five dollars to the City of New York as a public park, originally to be called Holland Square, with the proviso that the City of New York build a fence around it.As time passed, however, no fence was constructed, and in 1839, Stuyvesant's family sued the City to cause it to enclose the land.Not until 1847 did the City begin to improve the park by erecting the magnificent, 2800 foot long cast-iron fence, which still stands as the oldest cast-iron fence in New York City.