Yard Sale Aids N.Y. City Public Schools

Patty Seaman waited in line for three hours Saturday -- not exactly a novel experience for a New Yorker, except that she wasn’t going to a Yankee playoff game or a Broadway play.

She was going to a yard sale.

The yard was Central Park. Those who cleaned out their closets for the event included Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler and Regis Philbin. The cash box take was destined for the city’s public schools.

Seaman was among more than 10,000 who converged on the park for what was billed as the city’s biggest-ever tag sale.

“We hear there’s a good shoe section,” joked Seaman, an archivist from Long Island, as she and her sister, Cheryll, neared the front of the line. Which was true -- there were 3,000 pairs.

An hour later, each woman held three overstuffed bags and had covered about half the site.

“Look at this cute little bag for $1,” Seaman said, holding a black and white handbag.

Altogether, more than 300,000 items were featured at the weekend sale, including 20,000 lipsticks and 100,000 books.

Proceeds are going to the Fund for Public Schools, the fundraising arm of the beleaguered New York public school system, and will be used to pay for library books and after-school sports programs. The annual library-book budget for the system’s 1.1 million students is only $6 per child, said Leslie Koch, the fund’s chief executive.

Perhaps not surprising in the city that introduced the world to the first $50 hamburger and where the average price of a Manhattan apartment tops $1 million, people who wanted first dibs on the items were able to pay a $35 admission fee for a preview sale Friday.

About 2,000 people -- including New York City teachers who got in free -- went Friday, when about $100,000 was raised. Admission to the sale was free on Saturday and today, the final day of the sale. Real Simple magazine sponsored the event and guaranteed the schools at least $500,000.

Many items had normal tag-sale prices, $5 or less. “The items are priced so that the buyers can also win,” said Robin Domeniconi, Real Simple’s president.

Many people were thrilled by their bargains.

Les Katz, a city-school principal from Queens, got a winter coat for $15.

“That would normally be $150,” said his wife, Anita, who got a silk suit for $25.

“God knows who was wearing it before,” Les Katz joked.

Still, not everyone was satisfied.

Michele Hennessy, a 40-year-old special events manager for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, came down from Greenwich, Conn., to shop with her mother.

“We had a nice time,” she said, but “I thought they could have had a larger selection of things.”

And some passers-by couldn’t understand why time-pressed New Yorkers would wait in line for thrift items. “It’s absolutely insane that people would travel from so far away for a tag sale,” said Annette Ott from Stamford, Conn., who was in the park with her family. “We’re not waiting in line for a tag sale.”

Even if it was in one of the poshest sections of Manhattan.

“I didn’t think people shopped for bargains on the Upper East Side,” Patty Seaman said.

“They’re not the ones in line,” her sister said. “It’s their stuff we’re buying.”