Garnering a high level of interest and strong financial support from some power brokers in the real estate community, the Center for Jewish History held a fund-raising event last night chronicling the history of Jews in building New York City.

Held at the center’s headquarters on West 16th Street, the event scheduled a list of big names in city real estate — from Steven Roth of the development heavyweight Vornado Realty Trust to residential developer Kent Swig and historians including Kenneth Jackson of Columbia University — and covered the storied past of Jews in real estate in the city.

Organizers said “The History of Jewish Involvement in Building New York” fund-raiser had raised more than $400,000 as of yesterday.

“I’ve been involved with fundraising events within the real estate community and the Jewish community for 20 years, and this is the most successful event I can ever remember in terms of who was interested in coming and participating,” said Simon Ziff, a partner in Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group, which was involved with the event.

From landlords to developers, Jews hold a dominant place in the city’s real estate industry, accounting for an overwhelmingly large portion of the city’s top developers, both old household names and those relatively new to the industry.

The history of Jews in the city’s real estate has indeed been a rich one, especially in recent years. From ground zero developer Larry Silverstein to Bank of America tower builder Douglas Durst to Bruce Ratner and the Milstein family, the list of those claiming Jewish heritage in the business is a long one.

The prominent position played by Jews today has roots mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, historians say, as Jewish families grounded themselves in the business while immigrants poured in from Eastern Europe.

Mr. Swig, a residential developer and landlord who has focused on Lower Manhattan, said in a phone interview that his grandfather looked to real estate after being shut out of banking.

“A lot of other industries, the banking industry particularly, didn’t allow anybody who’s Jewish to work, so the industries were closed,” Mr. Swig said. “If you bought a piece of land, people wouldn’t say you couldn’t own it. There was an entry point where they couldn’t necessarily be denied.”

Developers and landlords in the city tended to start small, historians say, slowly building up a portfolio using an ethnic network as the city grew.

“A lot of rags to riches-type stories happened,” a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, Beth Wenger, said. “These were not wealthy people who started out by any stretch of the imagination. Many of them became wealthy.”