“It’s one of the realities that the commission grapples with, and it’s one of the reasons many of these properties have remained on the backlog, because there’s an understanding they will not be successful at the Council,” she said.

Each time an item was presented, in addition to facts about the year it was built and who the architect was, the commission staff mentioned whether the property had Council support, an implicit nod to the challenges. As a result, many properties on Staten Island and in Queens were not approved, while most in Brooklyn were. Notable losses included the former Cunard Mansion, now part of Wagner College, and an expansion of the Douglaston Historic District in Queens.

A number of commissioners questioned this deference to the Council during their roughly three hours of deliberations, suggesting that they wished they could take a firmer, if ultimately futile, stand on certain properties.

“I think we should vote, even if we know it’s going to get turned down,” Michael Goldblum, one of the commissioners, said. “It sends a message. It puts us on record. Look, we can’t protect it, we can’t protect it, but the mere fact of our having designated it, even if it is reversed, it constitutes a fight.”

Despite the commission’s clearing its backlog, the Council is considering a package of bills to place new restrictions on the agency.

Initially, the commission’s research staff had recommended that 28 items be protected, but during the meeting, commissioners lobbied for two additions: the Lakeman House, a Dutch Colonial home dating from the 1680s on Staten Island that is now part of a flower shop; and the Excelsior Power Company in Manhattan, which has been converted to apartments and considerably modified, though commissioners still found it to be evocative.

The commission rejected some properties outright because they had been so thoroughly altered over the years. The home at 123 Lexington Avenue where President Arthur lived, which was the site of his inauguration in 1881 after the assassination of President James A. Garfield, was rejected because the first two floors had been altered into storefronts, masking its residential character. Structures on two Staten Island properties, one the site of Dorothy Day’s seaside cottage, had been demolished.