Ms. Lopez had been an activist for women’s and gay rights in Puerto Rico, and in New York she was eager to immerse herself in local activism. At Charas, she found her place — even going so far as to say she “came to live in heaven” when she moved to Loisaida, as the neighborhood was known among Spanish speakers.

Ms. Lopez served in various organizations on the Lower East Side before being elected to City Council, where she served two terms. But in those early years, she was cleaning buildings for $25 a day. She helped clean the Charas building. The first floor was painted white and turned into a gallery. The basement was made into a theater for the performing arts. And while painters and dancers flocked to the sprawling rooms with their large windows, hundreds attended meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

The neighborhood was hardly without grit; when it became known that the city planned to sell the building, in 1997, the Latin Kings street gang — which also met in Charas — came to its defense at a Community Board meeting. The board sided with the gang members, but the city was unmoved. Charas was behind on its rent, it claimed, and though the organization made several offers to buy the building, officials found none of the proposals tenable.

Within a year, the building would go to Mr. Singer.

Mr. Singer, director and president of his real estate firm, Singer Financial Corporation, does not buy into the displays of high emotion that follow the Charas legacy. Where others see “emotional attraction” to the building, he said, he sees “nonsense.” On the day he bought the building and the crickets were released, he did not recognize a desperate last-ditch effort to save a beloved community center, but a clever ploy by opportunists to keep their cheap, illegal sublets.

“When people talk about this emotional tie to the building, I don’t get caught up,” said Mr. Singer, who met for two interviews in his office, located on the first floor of the old P.S. 64 building. “What they’re emotionally tied to is making money off someone else’s back illegally.”

He said he became aware of P.S. 64 only a few weeks before the auction, via an auction booklet he received in the mail from the city. He liked the building and he liked the neighborhood, which he saw was improving, so he went for it. He became aware of the high emotion surrounding the property only a year later, when Charas was digging in its heels in the face of his eviction attempts.