New Rockefellers on the block

NEW YORK - Carole Zabar's four-year-old granddaughter has a favourite lift in the Jewish Community Centre on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It has her family's name on it.

So does the preschool upstairs: The Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School. So does the food emporium five blocks away.

"They have one of the best names in New York," Rabbi Joy Levitt says of the Zabars, whose 72-year-old store on Broadway at 80th Street is synonymous with the affluent Upper West Side.

New York, where Wall Street's profits are fuelling wealth beyond the ranks of brokers and traders, is seeing a new wave of patrons eager to join the likes of the Carnegies and Rockefellers.

They're writing cheques - and attaching their names to everything from preschools to park benches.

Just last week, Columbia and New York Universities announced gifts of US$200 million ($330 million).

"The economy is strong enough that people are giving in a large way," says Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy newspaper.

Financial services companies, which account for 4.5 per cent of New York City's jobs and 19 per cent of pay, are booming.

Combined revenue from stock trading in the fiscal first quarter climbed almost 50 per cent to US$5.5 billion at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley, four of the five biggest New York-based securities firms.

Year-end bonuses on Wall Street totalled more than US$20 billion.

"All those bonuses are going into philanthropy," Palmer says.

Gifts with naming rights are especially attractive for many people.

"Every one of us wants to be remembered," says Naomi Levine, chairwoman of the George H. Heyman Jr Centre for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University, the US's largest private university.

The children's health centre at New York-Presbyterian Hospital is named for Phyllis and David Komansky, 66, the former chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, the world's biggest securities firm.

Cornell University's medical college on Manhattan's Upper East Side is named for Joan and Sanford Weill, 73, chairman of Citigroup, the biggest US bank.

The Weill Medical College attracted more than US$1 billion of gifts in the past 10 years by offering naming opportunities ranging from buildings to hallways, says Dean Antonio Gotto.

Especially attractive: 50 endowments for young researchers that required donations of US$250,000 apiece. "The clinical scholars' naming rights went like hotcakes," Gotto says. "Donors are attracted to helping young faculty get started."

The school was named in honour of the Weills after they donated US$100 million in 1998 before giving another US$100 million in 2002.

The City College of New York renamed its engineering school for alumnus Andrew Grove, 69, the co-founder of Intel, who made a US$26 million donation in October.

That gift just exceeds the US$25 million the Komanskys pledged to NewYork-Presbyterian in July.

People looking for a smaller entrance fee into the world of philanthropy have been giving US$7500 to buy a bench in Central Park, complete with a silver plaque bearing a message of the donor's choosing. More than 1200 of the park's 9000 benches have been adopted since the programme started in 1986.

Levine said the 1.8 million non-profit organisations in the US raised US$245 billion last year. More than 27,000 of them are based in New York.

One of this year's US$200 million gifts came from the foundation named for OppenheimerFunds founder Leon Levy to create a research centre on ancient civilisations at New York University.

The other US$200 million gift for Columbia will establish the Jerome Greene Science Centre, named for the real estate investor and lawyer.

Levitt approached Carole Zabar last year and arranged one of the JCC's largest contributions: US$5 million to rename the preschool the Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School.

Zabar, 63, sat on the board of directors for the JCC about 18 years ago, before the organisation had a home to call its own.

"The feeling of the place really is that of a community centre," Carole Zabar says. "It's not just about Jewish groups, it's really a centre for people of the Upper West Side."

Its art gallery, gymnasium, ceramics studio and meditation centre are open to students and their families. Tuition ranges from US$5500 to US$18,000 a year.

- BLOOMBERG