A “Fight Club”- obsessed Chelsea teen was arrested yesterday for using the movie’s message as an excuse to set off the Memorial Day blast outside a Starbucks on the Upper East Side.
Kyle Shaw, 17, who modeled himself on Brad Pitt’s violently anti-consumerist character, was nabbed at his family’s home Tuesday after apparently violating what Pitt says in the movie is “the first rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club.”
Shaw “told a friend to watch the news over Memorial Day because he was about to launch “Project Mayhem,’ ” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said after Shaw was charged with arson, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon.
“Project Mayhem” is what Pitt’s character — Tyler Durden — calls the corporate sabotage plot he launches in the 1999 flick, which features an attack on a coffee shop and is laden with scenes featuring Starbucks cups.
The real explosion — about the equivalent of a large firecracker going off — blew a hole in a bench and shattered two windows at the East 92nd Street Starbucks at around 3 a.m. on May 25. There were no injuries.
The blast was caused by a plastic container stuffed with fireworks powder and a fuse that Shaw allegedly left behind.
Since then, “Shaw has been bragging to friends that he was responsible for the Starbucks attack,” Kelly said.
Shaw — ordered held in lieu of $300,000 bond last night — was ratted out last week by friends worried he would follow through on a vow to pull off a second explosive stunt and skip town, said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Ryan. Those buddies feared that if that explosion hurt someone, “they’re going to feel bad about it,” Ryan said.
Authorities said Shaw emulated another key plot point besides explosions in “Fight Club”: He created an underground fight club for bare-knuckled boxing matches with few rules.
Shaw, calling himself “Tyler Durden,” staged bouts at Chelsea Piers and Central Park, where one kid got his nose broken, according to authorities.
A recent graduate of City-As-School HS, Shaw goes by the online moniker “Danger” and lives with his parents at 250 W. 27th St. Neighbors said he is a polite boy who enjoys skateboarding and hoped to become a fireman.
But Kelly said the device Shaw allegedly built “was powerful enough to cause injury or death to anyone who was passing by.”
Kelly said there appears to be no link between the explosion and bombings at the Times Square Army recruiting center and the Mexican and British consulates in recent years.
Cops found sparklers, a “Fight Club” DVD and a newspaper clipping about the bombing in Shaw’s home, Kelly said.
An employee of the Starbucks said, “All this because he watched a movie?
“He must be crazy.”
Additional reporting by Austin Fenner, Douglas Montero, Kevin Fasick, and Larry Celona