“The current president is messing up the association,” he said of Mr. Min. “I’m very sad.”

The association, with offices on the top floor of a six-story building it owns on West 24th Street in Manhattan, has a staff of two. According to the group’s website, it coordinates educational and cultural activities as well as social services in the community, and it works with other groups in the region “to further good will and harmony.” The highlight of the group’s calendar is the annual Korean Parade in Manhattan, which it helps to organize.

Still, even those closely associated with the group acknowledge that it has become a largely ceremonial entity in support of its president, an unsalaried post that inspires costly campaigns every two years. Candidates often spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to compete for the position, including an obligatory $100,000 contribution to the association’s election coffers to help offset the cost of holding the election.

Former presidents and presidential candidates say that prestige comes with the office: The association’s president serves as the official host to visiting high-level Korean dignitaries. One former president used his term in office as a springboard to a seat in the Korean congress.

The members of the small group that orchestrated the takeover on Tuesday night said they were motivated by a desire to restore the association’s relevance in the Korean population. (More than 160,000 foreign-born Koreans live in the New York metropolitan region, figures show.)

“We need to focus on rebuilding the organization,” said Mr. Kim, the group’s leader. “I love this organization. Our organization is very proud and very elegant.”

After breaking through the first door, the locksmith drilled through three more doors, opening a path to the inner sanctum of the association’s executive office.

“We finally entered the castle!” Mr. Kim crowed as he lowered himself into an upholstered leather armchair in the presidential office and gathered his compatriots for a celebratory photo.