343 Watch Company

Everyone asks the same question; how did we get the metal from the Twin Towers site?

After cleaning up of the site, debris became a huge problem. In all, there was 180,000,000 tons of debris recovered from ground zero. It is estimated that some 200,000 tons of steel collapsed to the ground when the twin towers collapsed. According to an article in the Journal Places, by spring of 2002 most of the structural steel had been transported to New Jersey. New York City sold about 175,000 tons of the scrap. Some was sold to various places in the United States and about 60,000 tons went to companies in China, India and South Korea according to news reports. Much of the steel was sold to be recycled. Among what remained was about 7,000 tons of structural steel and artifacts. This was moved and stored in an 80,000 square foot hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport and various entities began to express interest in using the steel for various memorials. Some of the steel went to build a Naval Ship, and some went to be recycled. A company in Statesboro, GA called International Agile Manufacturing obtained some of the steel from a recycling plant to make memorable medallions that they were selling as a part of history. Unfortunately, International Agile Manufacturing went bankrupt, and this is where Jeff came in. Jeff was able to obtain some of this steel from those medallions for his watches. Once he had his hands on that actual steel, he started looking for a way to use this steel as part of his watches. Jeff finally decided to use it to make the dials (face) of watch out of this steel. Rolex did a similar thing with a meteorite that they made into dials for their watches. Then Jeff wanted to take it a step further and include a picture of the twin towers on the dial of the watch to make a unique yet beautiful and memorable watch. The Twin Towers are actually lasered into the steel. The company name is left off of the front of the watch, so it doesn't take away from the beauty of the Twin Towers. The company name, 343 Watch Company, is lasered engraved into the case back of the watch. The dial is then left as bare metal and not painted. This is so people can actually relate when they see the steel colored dial. The dial is clear coated to prevent rust even though the watch is water resistant.