The New York Times began removing dozens of the distinctive horizontal ceramic rods that sheathe its year-old building in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon, hours after a man climbed up the side of the skyscraper. It was the third time such a stunt had occurred in the last five weeks.

The alteration of the facade of the 52-story tower, which was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and opened last year, represented a reversal for The Times, which had insisted that it would not remove the rods after two men scaled the building on June 5, using the veil of rods as a ladder.

Even as workers stood on a canopy along the West 41st Street side of the building on Wednesday, unclipping rods from their frames and piling them onto a hand truck, a Times spokeswoman, Catherine J. Mathis, declined to provide details about their efforts, saying, “We are not going to discuss the steps we have taken or may take to prevent a recurrence.”.

Michael Golden, the vice chairman of The New York Times Company, said he was determined to find a solution that would not compromise the architecture. “We’re going to sort this out within the design sensibility of the building,” he said.