YORKVILLE — A "Fight Club" fan has defaced a brand new bridge over the East River with an obscure reference to the movie.
The shiny $11.9 million pedestrian bridge at East 78th Street that opened earlier this year has been vandalized with big black spray-painted letters saying, "I am Jill's nipple."
In the 1999 film, the character played by Ed Norton finds an old magazine with articles written from an organ's point of view, including "I am Jack's colon," "I am Jack's medulla oblongata" — and "I am Jill's nipple."
The graffiti on the sleek structure, which connects Yorkville with the East River Esplanade over the FDR Drive and only opened on Jan. 20, raised some eyebrows on Thursday afternoon.
It greets joggers, cyclists, stroller pushers, dog walkers and others on the bridge's ramp that lines the walkway facing the East River.
"I have no idea why someone would do that," said Dorothy Carvello, 50, walking her Jack Russell Terrier, Dee Dee.
"It's such a shame," she added. "It's so pretty here and there are so few oases in the city."
She speculated that "kids" did it.
The film also depicts the main characters engaging in acts of vandalism in an urban center.
"Obviously, people come here late at night," Carvello said, pointing to a broken beer bottle next to a bench not far from the bridge.
"Even in Carl Schurz Park [a few blocks away] you see condoms on the ground. People have no pride. There isn't part of the city people don't ruin."
A Parks Department spokesman said the agency will paint over the graffiti on Friday.
"Only in New York," said Sandra Arida, 61, with a laugh as she saw the phrase while power-walking passed it. "Shame on them."
