The new director of the Police Athletic League is spearheading an effort to reach beyond the organization’s current base in African-American communities to recruit more immigrants to the PAL’s youth and crime prevention programs.

“We’re really reinventing the Police Athletic League,” Felix Urrutia said. “In our minds it’s still poor African-American kids in the ghetto, but that has changed: The poorest children in New York City are children of Hispanic immigrants.”

Mr. Urrutia took over the PAL in October and said the 93-year-old organization has no choice but to shift its focus if it wants to be relevant. He imagines a total transformation of its demographics, mission, and even its finances by the end of the year.

“People are saying you don’t want to upset the cart,” he said. “But I’m saying let’s examine ourselves and shed our skin that’s grown thick over the past few decades.”

So far, the PAL’s board has applauded his boldness.

Manhattan’s district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, the longtime chairman of the PAL’s board of directors, said Mr. Urrutia was hired because the board was looking for someone to reach out to the city’s ever-changing communities.

Mr. Morgenthau added that the effort to expand the organization’s base is nothing new.

“This isn’t a revolutionary idea. It’s always been a part of our policy,” Mr. Morgenthau said in a phone interview. “That’s all part of the program to make the community feel they understand the police, and for the police to get to know the community.”

In terms of demographics, the PAL has had to transform itself throughout its history to respond to the city’s changing population.

The organization traces its history to 1914, when the police department transformed vacant lots into playgrounds for the mostly European immigrant children living in cramped tenement buildings.

Later, the PAL expanded into Harlem, opening libraries that focused on black and Puerto Rican history.

Before becoming director, Mr. Urrutia helped to found the PAL’s New South Bronx Center, a brightly painted building in the Longwood section of the Bronx located a few blocks from where a Honduran immigrant, Fermin Arzu, was recently shot by an off-duty police officer.

The center draws most of its children from schools with student populations that are between 60% and 79% Hispanic, and already the center is undergoing some of the transformations Mr. Urrutia is planning for the PAL as a whole.

Murals on the wall quote an African-American rapper, Tupac Shakur, and a Latin American revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. A new director, Miriam Peña, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, was hired two months ago.

“I’d like to be more hands-on with the families,” she said.

Mr. Urrutia said the friendly face of PAL representatives could help the police deal with community tensions in the aftermath of incidents such as the Arzu shooting.

“Wouldn’t it be helpful if when there was a press conference with the police commissioner under heat, if you could have PAL representatives there to talk about how to reach out to the community?” he said.

He also suggested that the PAL’s outreach efforts could help dispel fear of the police among immigrants.

“Most people view PAL as a place where kids can play baseball or softball,” he said. “We are far more than that.”