By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — Forget bake sales, one Upper West Side school has turned to selling face time with New York City legends to make money.
P.S. 166, also called the Richard Rodgers School of the Arts and Technoloy, is auctioning off dinner at off-the-charts exclusive Rao's restaurant with Sonny Grosso, one of the NYPD cops who inspired the movie "The French Connection."
The school's online auction, an annual fundraiser, went live March 6 and ends March 27. Items for sale include Broadway tickets, a stay at a villa in Turkey and even orthodontic services — including braces — valued at $7,200.
The school is in the process of posting all of the items on auction's website; some, including the dinner at Rao's, aren't listed online yet.
The K-5 school, on West 89th between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, is also peddling a half-hour meeting with Seymour Stein, the music industry legend who is credited with discovering Madonna, The Talking Heads, The Pretenders, Depeche Mode and The Smiths.
The 30-minute sitdown with Stein, founder of Sire Records and a vice president at Warner Bros. Records, is listed as "priceless."
The school also didn't try to put a price tag on the dinner at Rao's, the East Harlem restaurant with 10 tables that are only available to an anointed group of regulars with standing reservations.
Every table at the restaurant has been booked since 1977, according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, and the restaurant booked the last standing reservation five or six years ago.
A dinner at the restaurant was snapped up on eBay last year for $5,000.
"If you don't know someone, you're not getting in," said Michele Samarel, a P.S. 166 parent and auction co-chair. But a "friend of a friend" at P.S. 166 has access to the once-in-a-lifetime dining opportunity, Samarel said.
The winning bidder will break bread with Grosso and his girlfriend, who have a standing reservation at Rao's on Monday nights. The table seats six, and celebrities such as Jack Nicholson have been known to eat with Grosso.
The money the auction raises would go toward books, supplies, science kits and enrichment programs at P.S. 166, including a chess program and a partnership with the Vital Theatre Company, Samarel said.
Last year's auction raised more than $45,000 for P.S. 166, Samarel said.
