A resident of 220 Riverside Boulevard, another condominium nearby, initiated a petition to remove the name from her building that garnered support from at least 57 homeowners and 24 renters in the building, although little came of it.

At 200 Riverside Boulevard, the board’s residential committee conducted an anonymous survey of residents last February about whether to keep or remove the Trump name. The letter announcing the effort assured residents, in capital letters, that “THIS IS A BLIND SURVEY AND CANNOT BE TRACKED TO AN APARTMENT,” lest they be fearful of answering honestly.

“A majority was in favor” of removing the Trump letters, Mr. Koeppel, an independent management and technology consultant, recalled. He said a minority of residents had no issue with the letters, while others supported the president. Mr. Harvey and his wife, Peggy Koeppel, sold their 12th-floor apartment in July, after retiring and moving to the Hudson Valley, but not before they were forced to drop the price by 10 percent to secure a buyer.

Just before a meeting of unit owners to discuss the survey results, on March 29, Alan Garten, the chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, sent a letter to the board saying that removal of the letters would constitute a “flagrant and material breach of the license agreement.”

Mr. Garten also said that many apartment owners had reached out to express “their grave concerns with the Board’s contemplated action.”

That cast a pall over the meeting, Mr. Koeppel said. “There was definitively a fear in the air.”

With a new board on its way in, a decision was delayed. Then, last week, the residential committee of the board asked the court to issue a declaratory judgment that the condominium has the right to use or remove the letters without violating its licensing agreement with Mr. Trump.

Under the licensing agreement, the committee acknowledges the board’s obligation “to maintain the building in a manner consistent with ‘super luxury’ condominiums in Manhattan.”