“To become a landmark, a building, property or object must be at least 30 years old, and have special historical or aesthetic interest, value, or character as part of the development of the city, state or nation,” LPC Spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon said.

This means that the building can’t just be special to your family or your life’s history, it must speak to to the longstanding history of New York City and its ever changing culture in the eyes of the landmark commissioners.

Anyone — and not just commission members — can propose a landmark. To start the process, a person in favor of designating a building as a landmark must fill out a Request for Evaluation form found here. This form asks for the sponsor’s name and address, the building’s location, and pictures of the building. Once this form has been submitted, someone from the LPC will evaluate the property to determine if it holds special value to New York City.

Afterward, the LPC committee member who evaluated the property will report to the entire commission to determine whether or not the building has potential to become a landmark. If the answer is yes, the LPC then holds a public hearing for the community members to discuss the building. If no, the proposal is dropped.

At this hearing, a member of the LPC and the representative of the building have an opportunity to speak and voice their opinions about the potential landmark. Finally, the committee writes a report on the potential landmark, including the significance of the building, and votes on it.

If six commissioners approve the proposal, the building then becomes a landmark and the commission has ten days to file a report with the New York City Council. The City Planning Commission then prepares a report on the new landmark’s influence on public development, and the City Council votes whether to accept the designation or not.

“The commission receives approximately 250 requests asking our staff to evaluate the eligibility of buildings or neighborhoods for landmark or historic district status,” de Bourbon said. “The commission designates approximately 25 to 30 individual landmarks each year and between three and five historic districts each year.”

According to de Bourbon, the length of time it takes to designate a historic district is dictated by its size. Small districts can take a year, while larger ones can take up to two and a half or three years. There are no deadlines by which a building or district must be designated.

“We accept nominations from any member of the public, and ask that they submit a photograph and as much information as possible about the building,” de Bourbon said. “The commission staff will then evaluate that information, and conduct further research on its own to determine whether it meets our criteria.”

After a person suggests a landmark, most of their work is done. The commission and preservation societies such as the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) take over.

Once the GVSHP is aware of a building that is petitioning for landmark status, it reaches out to its members, other preservation organizations, industry interested parties, stake holders, and merchants surrounding the building to get support, Andrew Berman, the executive director of GVSHP, said.

The organization also writes letters to the commission, meets with commission members and sends e-mails to interested parties. But for most of the process, it’s a waiting game.

According to de Bourbon, there’s not much an individual can do to convince the commission that their building should be landmarked, except have good evidence and research — and most of that is done by the commissioners.

Although, Clayton Kirking, head of the Art and Architecture Collection at the New York Public Library (NYPL), said that many individuals come to him for information on the history of buildings and landmarks.

It is important to keep in mind though that not every building meets the standards of a landmark. Some buildings just aren’t historically, architecturally or culturally significant to warrant landmark designation.

“We don’t go proposing that just every building be landmarked,” Berman said. “We recognize that there is a particular reason for it and that the standards for it should be kept high. It’s just that the neighborhoods that we represent are architecturally, culturally and historically rich, but that does not mean that every building in these areas rises to those standards.”

Some owners of buildings see this more as a burden instead of a benefit. Once buildings become landmarks, they become very hard to alter to fit the changing needs of their residents and require constant upkeep by law to ensure that the building remains in good condition.

“You cant change anything that effects the exterior appearance of the building,” Kirking of NYPL said. “Then things like replacing windows become a hugely expensive thing.”

According to Kirking, this is an issue that effects residential and privately owned landmarks more than public landmarks such as the New York Public Library. This is because landmark owners who use the building for residential purposes don’t have as many public sources of funding as public landmarks do to make repairs or preserve the building. The burden of cost is solely on them, although aid is available for struggling landmark owners.

While the outside of the building may be a problem for some landmark owners to maintain, the inside is a different story.

“There’s just a little wrinkle in the landmark law that people aren’t normally aware of and that is that being a landmark only protects the outside of the building,” Kirking said.

For residential buildings, this may be a good thing because it allows them to grow, change and adapt on the inside, but for public buildings, like the library, it can be a bad thing, because certain architectural or historical features on the inside aren’t being preserved for the people to admire.

Kirking said that people come from around the country to view the interior and exterior of the New York Public Library Main Branch which was declared a national historic landmark in 1965.

“There are always people here that are always looking to do things that the staff aren’t here to do,” Kirking said. “They’re just here to look at the building.”

While Kirking believes that it is the New York Public Library’s duty to serve tourists, he believes that the main reason why the library functions is to help people who come in to study or research a specific subject area in depth.

“Landmarks are in some of the most dynamic and prosperous neighborhoods of all New York City, and they are in some of the most desirable and sought after in all of New York,” Berman of GVSHP said. “Landmark preservation helps them to obtain their distinctive character but does not prevent them from growing and becoming profitable.”

Stefan Harshman, Webster Hall’s production manager, remembers sneaking into the nightclub, landmarked in 2008, every other week in the early eighties when he was a teenager to see a show. Back in those days, he could enjoy the music and never have to pay a thing.

To him, Webster Hall is and always has been a real bricks and mortar cultural icon that shaped much of his identity as he was growing up.

“Being landmarked is just a formality,” Harshman said. “Webster Hall was landmarked two years ago. In my mind it was a landmark decades before that.”

But, there is more to being a landmark than the special place it holds in people’s hearts. Other benefits such as loans, grants, tax breaks and zoning mechanisms come with it.

“These special buildings and places not only represent the City’s architectural, historic and cultural heritage, they also help stabilize and improve property values, encourage civic pride, enhance the City’s tourist attractions and strengthen its economy,” de Bourbon of the LPC said.

For landmark owners who want to restore, renovate or repair their designated properties, the LPC offers a grant program, called the Historic Preservation Grant Program, which provides up to $15,000 to income-eligible owners.

Federal and state law also provide tax credits against income to the owners of eligible historic structures that are income-producing for certain substantial rehabilitation work or for properties located in low-income census tracts.

To Kirking, these kind of incentives are needed to maintain the buildings that are important to the city and its heritage.

“That’s the kind of miracle of the Landmarks Commission, that the cityscape is preserved,” Kirking said.