Those Law & Order Scripts Just Keep on Coming

Ripped out of the headlines faster than Dick Wolf spins off shows. “Cheatin’ Hearts Get Scammed”:

A pair of con artists has been shaking down wives who have illicit affairs in hot-sheet hotels around Brooklyn — threatening to tell their husbands unless they cough up thousands of dollars, The Post has learned.

The sleazy scheme was bared after one victim, a mother of three, went to cops, who staged a sting.

The duo would case short-stay hotels to identify guests who looked like they were married women there for a quickie with a secret lover, sources said.

Then they approached the cheaters and said they’d been hired by their husbands to follow them and had gathered plenty of evidence.

They said the evidence could quietly vanish for a payoff of up to $2,000 — and the women, frantic to keep their indiscretions quiet, forked over the dough.

“They looked for women coming out of motels in the middle of the day with smiles on their faces,” one law-enforcement source said.

“Chances are anybody smiling as they leave a motel in the middle of the day is not leaving with the man they’re married to.”

As many as a dozen cheating housewives may have been victimized, sources said.

Things unraveled when the two men approached a Mill Basin woman on Jan. 12.

They told her they had videotape of her going in and out of hotels and demanded money, according to the criminal complaint.

The frantic woman went to police, and 63rd Precinct detectives set up a sting at the Arch Diner, at Flatlands and Ralph avenues.

The woman met one man, Carmine Russo, 24, outside and, with cops watching, gave him $1,500, police said.

Russo, who lives on Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, is charged with grand larceny by extortion and petit larceny.

The whistleblower, who said her hubby still doesn’t know of her two-timing ways, told The Post the experience has jolted her.

“It is horrible! Everybody is out to ruin me!” she said.

Police are asking other victims to contact them at (718) 258-4401.

Did you catch the latest Life-Imitates-Briscoe line there? “Chances are anybody smiling as they leave a motel in the middle of the day is not leaving with the man they’re married to.”

Cruise Ships in Red Hook

Work is set to begin next month on a new cruise ship passenger terminal at Piers 11 and 12 in Red Hook. First IKEA — now cruise ships. It boggles the mind.

A Generous Gesture Bound to Look Good on Videotape

U2 played a surprise concert yesterday at Fulton Ferry State Park, next to the Brooklyn Bridge. Don’t miss Jon Pareles’ bemused reporting in the Times article, “Word of a Free Concert, Next to an Oft-Sold Bridge, Spreads Quickly”:

U2 played a not-so-secret free concert yesterday afternoon at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park on the bank of the East River in Brooklyn. For slightly more than an hour, with the Brooklyn Bridge overhead and the lights of downtown Manhattan as a backdrop, the band played songs from its new album, “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” and a few older songs to thousands of well-behaved fans ready to shout “Yeah!” or clap along at any cue from Bono.

The concert was the culmination of a well-orchestrated video shoot that doubled as a publicity stunt for the Irish band. Through the afternoon, the four members of U2 were set up on the back of a flatbed truck. They were plugged in and performing the band’s next single, “All Because of You” as the truck’s route wound downtown from the Upper West Side, trailed by a helicopter for aerial shots.

. . .

The concert will be telecast by MTV on Dec. 8. But Bono played to the local audience, adding references to Brooklyn to some lyrics. “Why does this feel like a hometown concert?” he asked, to cheers. For an encore, U2 played a triumphal second take of “Vertigo.” As one lyric went “All of this can be yours,” Bono turned to the skyline, then changed it for the occasion: “All of this is yours,” he proclaimed with a grin. Like the concert itself, it was a generous gesture that is bound to look good on videotape.

(Note to self: remember phrase “a generous gesture that is bound to look good on videotape” for future use!)

Bonus point: Overheard in New York’s “Something Bloody Something”.

Brooklyn Masonic Temple

Christopher Gray explains the innovative architecture of the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene:

Nearly cubic, and roughly 100 feet on a side, the temple is marble, rough-textured brick and glazed terra cotta. The horizontals of the base and upper section contain the verticality of the middle section, a screen of pilasters and engaged columns. Architectural critics gave the temple rave reviews — but it does not, at first glance, look that spectacular.

So what is so great about this building?

Hewlett and his partners rethought several accepted practices, like the glazed terra cotta columns. To reduce the number of joints, architects tend to make columns out of the largest pieces possible. But terra cotta shrinks during the firing process, and the larger the mold, the harder it is to produce pieces close to specification, and the more prominent the joining.

With the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, the architects went in the counterintuitive direction, firing not three or four large sections per column, but about 50 much smaller elements. The resulting joints are so numerous they become part of the design, rather than merely interruptions.

The architects also used color with sophistication. The nearly monochrome shade of the marble base gradually evolves to a festive splash of sienna, green, yellow, cream and blue at the cornice and frieze. The cream-colored column drums were fired with a slight amber tone in the fluting, emphasizing the natural shading in the recessed grooves, and adding a color accent.

The designers also reconsidered normal bricklaying practices. Instead of the usual course-on-course brickwork for the wall surfaces, they produced oversized brick units by stacking the bricks in pairs, with dark mortar between the paired units. The design gives a massiveness that a traditional one could not.

Although the glazed terra cotta was considered nearly self-cleaning, today the Brooklyn Masonic Temple has lost much of its punch. Although the Masons have kept the brick, terra cotta and even roof cresting intact, soil has collected all over the terra cotta, substantially dimming its original brilliance.

Some buildings do not benefit from cleaning, and this might be one of those. But in the temple’s present condition, the original design can only be imagined.

Bonus Point: A Walk Through Fort Greene.