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After a night of storms, both political and meteorological, workers began removing President Trump’s name from the white marble facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts early on Saturday morning, responding to a federal judge’s ruling that its rebranding was unlawful.

The letters began coming down just past 3 a.m., after the center sought an extension of a midnight deadline. Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, asked a federal district court for 12 more hours to certify that it had complied with the order, attributing the delay to a cluster of summer storms.

Workers spent about eight hours on Friday building towering scaffolding in front of the section of the facade bearing Mr. Trump’s name. Then, in the early hours of Saturday, they hung heavy white tarps from the structure. It obscured views of the removal, which was a significant symbolic victory for opponents of Mr. Trump’s takeover of an iconic performing arts center.

But a gap in the tarps allowed a New York Times photographer to observe a worker pulling the letter “A” from the wall. There was no sound of power tools; the letter appeared to come off by hand.

For all of Friday, lawyers for Mr. Trump and the center had been seeking legal intervention to keep his name on the marble as they pursue an appeal.

But after both the district court and a federal appeals court denied their requests for an immediate stay on the ruling, workers began erecting scaffolding in earnest to reach the letters. A rowdy audience of a few hundred people gathered to watch.

The center’s Trump-allied board voted to add the president’s name to the institution nearly six months ago, causing an uproar in Washington and a crisis within the city’s pre-eminent art center. At an institution that had already been rocked by the president’s takeover, the 18 new letters affixed to the building — less than a day after the board vote — increased the temperature even further.

Democratic legislators condemned the move as an act of “narcissism”; a series of artists canceled engagements at the center; and Representative Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the center’s board, filed a lawsuit calling the move a “flagrant violation of the rule of law.” Ms. Beatty was on hand for the operation on Saturday morning, remaining on the plaza outside the Kennedy Center even after the work crew departed around 4 a.m.

The ensuing debate over the appropriateness of the renaming led to a bizarre scene in Washington, where, for two days, the arts center on the Potomac River has seen a flurry of visitors, not there for a symphony or ballet, but to see whether the president’s name would be detached from the marble. While onlookers kept watch, a steady drumbeat of legal developments drove a sense of uncertainty over whether the removal would happen at all.

On Thursday, one of the first signs of movement came when security guards erected black bike racks to close off the main drive and walkway near the front of the building. Passers-by quizzed volunteers and guards inside the center about when the letters would come off, with little success.

A short walk from the Kennedy Center, residents of the Watergate were planning impromptu house parties at the sprawling condominium complex. Two volunteer organizations, Hands Off the Arts and Free the Kennedy Center, coordinated to livestream the signage on the building from a webcam situated on a balcony at the Watergate.

Christine Lienert and Debra Wilfong kept their celebratory champagne on ice until 10:30 p.m. on Thursday. As news emerged that Mr. Trump’s name would not be coming off the building that night, they slipped the bubbly back into the fridge

On Friday, Ms. Lienert reloaded the cooler and joined the throng awaiting the letters’ removal. But after news spread that Mr. Trump’s name might not be removed for hours, she packed up her champagne, the ice in her cooler having long since melted.

Not everyone who milled around the Kennedy Center was opposed to keeping Mr. Trump’s name on the building. Jeanette Mercado and her husband, Bert, had traveled to Washington from Wasco, in California’s Central Valley, to see the capital’s monuments and came upon the scaffolding and the gathering crowd.

“I like Trump, I like what he’s doing for our country, I think he’s a blessing for our country, and I don’t see anything wrong with his name being added,” Ms. Mercado said, her voice almost drowned out by chants of “take it down.”

Mr. Mercado, who said he was a Trump supporter as well, took a different view. “There should be a sense of continuity here — why are you going to interject your name?” he said.

In December, the Kennedy Center board voted to put Mr. Trump’s name on the building in recognition of what officials have described as his dedication to the institution and his help in securing $257 million to finance what officials said was a much-needed renovation.

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On Friday night, workers constructed scaffolding near President Trump’s name on the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Credit…Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

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