Det. Munch came bearing hot sandwiches

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New York

The weather gods are not looking kindly on the picketers in the East. The temperature keeps dropping as the week goes on, and the 50-some strikers who gathered on a corner across from the Chelsea Piers this afternoon had to bundle up in parkas and scarves to ward off the frigid air blowing off the Hudson River.

The cold didn’t seem to dampen their spirits, however. They shouted and waved their signs, cheering as trucks whizzing by on the West Side Highway blared their horns in support. And they really perked up when a familiar figure ambled across the street, holding a tray.

“Hot sandwiches! Hot sandwiches!” called out Richard Belzer, better known as Det. John Munch from “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” The strikers burst out into applause and calls of “Yay! Yay!”

Belzer was one of several actors who stopped by the picket line today; earlier, Sam Waterston and Tim Robbins came by to lend their support. “I’m a union man, I always have been, and I think the last thing the writers wanted to do is strike,” he said. “But I think it was made virtually impossible for them not to strike.”

“Everything is going to shut down,” added Belzer, who said he doesn’t expect to work beyond next week. “Networks are going to see how many reality shows they can get away with until the public is so repelled that they hire back the writers and make some kind of deal. That’s terrible, because it could be months.”

Inside Chelsea Piers, where the “Law & Order” shows are shot, the mood is somber, he said.

“We’re all upset,” Belzer said. “Most of the actors will be OK, at least for a while. But the crew–-it’s not a happy time. They work 14 hours a day, they hardly see their kids, they have mortgages. The caterers, the dry cleaners--this is going to have collateral damage. It’s a sad strike. It’s going to cause a lot of hardship.”

-- Matea Gold