March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Carole Zabar's 4-year-old granddaughter has a favorite elevator in the Jewish Community Center 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. ``I was moved by the idea that their granddaughter understood that Zabar is more than a name.''

New York, where Wall Street's profits are fueling 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 checks -- and attaching their names to everything from preschools to park benches. Just this week, Columbia University and New York University each announced $200 million gifts.

``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 percent of New York City's jobs and 19 percent of pay, are booming. Combined revenue from stock trading in the fiscal first quarter climbed almost 50 percent to $5.5 billion at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bear Stearns Cos. and Morgan Stanley, four of the five biggest New York-based securities firms. Year-end bonuses on Wall Street totaled more than $20 billion.

`Going Into Philanthropy'

``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. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University, the U.S.'s largest private university.

The children's health center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is named for Phyllis and David H. Komansky, 66, the former chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's biggest securities firm. Cornell University's medical college on Manhattan's Upper East Side is named for Joan and Sanford I. Weill, 73, chairman of Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank.

The Weill Medical College attracted more than $1 billion of gifts in the past 10 years by offering naming opportunities ranging from buildings to hallways, says Dean Antonio M. Gotto Jr. Especially attractive: 50 endowments for young researchers that required donations of $250,000 apiece.

`Like Hotcakes'

``The clinical scholars naming rights went like hotcakes,'' Gotto says. ``Donors are attracted to helping young faculty get started.''

The school was named in honor of the Weills after they donated $100 million in 1998. Sanford Weill is a Cornell alumnus. The couple gave $100 million more in 2002, Gotto says.

The City College of New York renamed its engineering school for alumnus Andrew S. Grove, 69, the co-founder of Intel Corp. who made a $26 million donation in October. That gift just exceeds the $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 $7,500 to buy a bench in Central Park, complete with a silver plaque bearing a message of the donor's choosing. More than 1,200 of the park's 9,000 benches have been adopted since the program started in 1986, says Douglas Blonsky, president of the Central Park Conservancy.

`Love, John'

A bench in the Shakespeare Garden, near the Delacorte Theater, was dedicated in memory of Richard Burton and his father, Phillip Burton. One man led his girlfriend to a bench near the Central Park Zoo, where the plaque reads ``Michelle, will you marry me? Love, John.'' She said yes, according to the conservancy's Web site.

There are about 1.8 million nonprofits in the U.S. which raised $245 billion in 2005, Levine says. More than 27,000 of them are based in New York.

Big donations this year include a $200 million gift from the foundation named for OppenheimerFunds Inc. founder Leon Levy to create a research center on ancient civilizations at New York University. A similar gift went to Columbia University to establish the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, named for the real estate investor and lawyer. Both were announced this month.

Revlon Inc. Chairman Ronald O. Perelman, 63, gave $20 million earlier this month to Carnegie Hall. The stage in the main auditorium will take his name.

`Very Strong Year'

``Usually we have these kinds of donations in the later part of the year, so people feel it's going to be a very strong year,'' Palmer says.

Rabbi Levitt approached Carole Zabar last fall and arranged one of the JCC's largest contributions: $5 million to rename the preschool the Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School. The school, which opened in 2001, was renamed in February.

Zabar, 63, sat on the board of directors for the JCC about 18 years ago, before the organization had a home to call its own. While she and her husband made a donation to the capital fund then, she left the board when the prospect of breaking ground on a building seemed too far off, she says.

A Community Home

Zabar got involved again once her granddaughter started at the nursery school in September 2004, she says. Her granddaughter graduated last year and is now in her first year at Horace Mann School. Zabar's grandson, 3, started at the JCC preschool in September.

``The feeling of the place really is that of a community center,'' she says. ``It's not just about Jewish groups, it's really a center for people of the Upper West Side.''

The school has a fish tank at the entrance that ``endlessly fascinates'' its 180 students, says Ilana Ruskay-Kidd, the director. The JCC's art gallery, gymnasium, ceramics studio, meditation center and more are all open to students and their families. Tuition ranges from $5,500 a year for 2-year-olds attending two three-hour days to $18,000 a year for a full week for 4- to 5-year-olds, she says.

Ruskay-Kidd, who turned away about 260 applicants for the 2006-2007 school year, says students come from a range of socio- economic backgrounds, family structures and religious backgrounds. She tells them that Zabar's -- where more than 35,000 customers a month shop for smoked fish, gourmet coffee, cheese and housewares -- is ``a place that smells good, tastes good, looks good and all the people inside are kind and know about quality.''

``That's what we want for the school,'' she says.

For Zabar, the pressure of the preschool applications is a world away from her experience going to public school in a Detroit suburb.

``The idea that a kid's going to get into a nursery school and they'll be set for life is ridiculous,'' she says. ``Harvard is nothing compared to this.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Courtney Dentch in New York at cdentch1@bloomberg.net; Patrick Cole in New York at pcole3@Bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 24, 2006 00:10 EST