A Moment in Time Captured in Pieces

A Moment in Time Captured in Pieces

The instrument itself is a two-tone Oyster Perpetual Datejust, with a 41-millimeter case, an unusual grooved dial of 18-karat gold, a gold-and-silver Jubilee bracelet and a signature flip-lock clasp. It is a chronometer, which is to say a precision watch that enables its wearer to measure elapsed time, not in the way a stopwatch might, but with great accuracy. It is a Rolex, one of millions of wristwatches produced over the decades by this notable producer of high-end timepieces, and when originally sold it cost roughly $7,700.

Smashed now, charred and fragmented, missing its crystal, the sweep-second hand and what would appear to be the minute hand and also half the bracelet, the watch still tells time, in a sense, but only one time. Frozen in a small indicator window of Todd Beamer’s Rolex is the number 11. That was the date in September 2001 when four terrorists hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 and crashed it into a reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville, Pa., killing Mr. Beamer and all onboard.

Of the 800 or so recovered artifacts on view at the National September 11 Memorial Museum, many relate to the telling of time. There are crucial timeline reconstructions of the day’s events. “Time as a concept, as in timepieces, is a consistent thread” in any historical rendering of the events of that fateful day, said Jan Seidler Ramirez, chief curator and director of collections at the museum.

“So, yes, there’s the Beamer watch, which takes on a whole aura because his particular story is quite well known,” Ms. Ramirez added. “But there are also other timepieces that speak to that timeline and narrative in another way, since everybody more or less wears a watch, this intimate object that has touched the body.”

Beamer’s battered watch a key piece for 9/11 Memorial Museum

The instrument itself is a two-tone Oyster Perpetual Datejust, with a 41- millimeter case, an unusual grooved dial of 18-karat gold, a gold and silver bracelet and a signature flip-lock clasp. It is a Rolex, one of millions of wristwatches produced through the decades by the notable manufacturer, and it cost roughly $7,700 new. Smashed now, charred and fragmented, missing its crystal, the watch still tells time, in a sense.

The instrument itself is a two-tone Oyster Perpetual Datejust, with a 41- millimeter case, an unusual grooved dial of 18-karat gold, a gold and silver bracelet and a signature flip-lock clasp.

It is a Rolex, one of millions of wristwatches produced through the decades by the notable manufacturer, and it cost roughly $7,700 new.

Smashed now, charred and fragmented, missing its crystal, the watch still tells time, in a sense.

Frozen in a small indicator window of Todd Beamer�s Rolex is the number 11. That was the date in September 2001 when four terrorists hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 and crashed it into a reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville, Pa., killing Beamer and everyone else onboard.

Of the 800 or so recovered artifacts on view at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, many relate to the telling of time. There are crucial timeline reconstructions of the day�s events.

�Time as a concept, as in timepieces, is a consistent thread� in any historical rendering of the events of that day, said Jan Seidler Ramirez, chief curator and director of collections at the museum.

�So, yes, there�s the Beamer watch, which takes on a whole aura because his particular story is quite well-known,� Ramirez added. �But there are also other timepieces that speak to that timeline and narrative in another way.�

There is a wall clock from the offices of the Department of the Navy at the Pentagon. There is an antique chronometer that Richard Guadagno, a 38-year-old biologist, was wearing as he returned home after a trip to New Jersey.

But there is also a dainty wristwatch worn by Margaret L. Benson, a 52-year-old Port Authority worker last seen alive outside a Borders bookstore adjacent to the twin towers. By all accounts, Peggy Benson was a no-frills woman whose single vanity was her watch.

Each timepiece is symbolically resonant, and yet Beamer�s shattered Rolex has been an object of deep fascination for many of the museum�s 720,000 visitors � perhaps because it carries an extra freight of meaning.

Unlike so many who committed heroic acts that day, those who died and disappeared and those who survived, the 32-year-old Oracle executive and father is remembered widely for a battle cry.

�Let�s roll!� were Beamer�s last recorded words, uttered as he and his fellow passengers made a brave if futile attempt to overpower al-Qaida operative Ziad Jarrah and his fellow terrorists.

Like so many relics at the museum, Beamer�s Rolex evokes something intimate by providing both a record of a death and a window into a life.

�It�s an anthropological constant that we relate to our memories through things,� said Felicity Bodenstein, an associate lecturer at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, who has written extensively on secular relics.

When we contemplate an object such as Beamer�s Rolex, she added, �Because it is immediate, because it is sensory, we are allowed to enter directly into a personal, intimate relationship with a historical figure.�

And in the case of a figure such as Beamer, a surviving relic functions �as a passport into a moment in time,� Bodenstein said � one rendered more powerful because it records the instant when time seemed to stop.

It would be more than a decade after the 9/11 attack before the watch came into the museum�s possession. Like many other relics in the collection, it was lent by a family member � Beamer�s wife, Lisa � along with one of his business cards recovered from wreckage scattered widely near the former Diamond T strip mine in Stony Creek Township.

Professional detachment is a great difficulty for those charged with handling objects such as the open-toed Kenneth Cole pumps that Florence Jones wore to escape the World Trade Center; Giovanna Galletta Gambale�s wallet, with its LensCrafters coupon and Banana Republic credit card; or Beamer�s watch.

�There are these moments when you�ll come to the next object, and, for whatever reason, it has a significant impact,� said museum conservator John Childs. �The watch, because of whose watch it was, has an important resonance. Frankly, I�m not going to talk about what it means that it was recovered because I don�t want to go there in my own mind.�