R.I.P. Gordon McCannel Aamoth, Jr. (Gordy) August 8, 1969 – September 11, 2001

on August 26, 2009

Go to the “Never Forgetting What We Lost on 9/11” main page.

 

Gordy Aamoth, 32, was from Minnesota where his father is an orthopedic surgeon in Wayzata. He was born at Eglin Air Force Base in Ft. Walton Beach, FL to Mary and Dr. Gordon Aamoth, and he has two brothers Erik and Peter. He was an investment banker at Sandler O’Neill & Partners and according to the profile published in The New York Times, he had just landed a big merger deal for Sandler O’Neill in Minneapolis. Gordy’s brother Erik said that Gordy had wanted to be an investment banker since high school, watching the movie Wall Street. In an Associated Press interview, Erik said, “My family and I will always remember the day of September 11th, praying for a phone call that never came.”

Today the Sandler O’Neill & Partners website includes a tribute that says, “As people and as a firm, we suffered a tremendous blow on September 11, 2001. On that day, we lost 68 of our 171 partners and employees in the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, including Herman Sandler, one of our founders, and Chris Quackenbush, who started our investment banking practice. We mourn their loss each day, but have drawn strength and resolve from their sacrifice.” Only 17 of Sandler O’Neill & Partners’ employees in the New York office escaped the destruction at the World Trade Center. Another section of the website has photos of Gordy Aamoth and the 67 others from Sandler O’Neill & Partners who died on 9/11.

Another memorial is in Gordy Aamoth’s hometown. The athletic young batchelor had been the captain of his high school football team at The Blake School in Hopkins, Minnesota. After he was killed in World Trade Center, The Blake School decided to name its new football field “The Gordy Aamoth Memorial Stadium.” Next to the football stadium is Spirit Plaza, a stunning memorial to the victims of 9/11 dedicated on September 11, 2002. Spirit Plaza includes a 500 pound steel beam from 2 WTC, the South Tower where Gordy worked. The memorial plaque at Spirit Plaza says that the beam, which was “originally atop the 110-story building” was “one of the first to hit the ground, crashing through the avenue and coming to rest in the subway below while the top remained thrust above street level.”  The beam was given to the Aamoth family by the City of New York.

Also part of the Spirit Plaza memorial is Spirit Rock, quarried near Mankato, Minnesota. The rock is almost 10 tons of dolomitic limestone, says the plaque, and tells that “its rough, unfinished surface represents the premature ending of so many lives.” In addition the thousands of lives that were taken in the 9/11 attacks are symbolized by the granite paving stones that form an incomplete spiral around the rock.

The plaque concludes “Spirit Plaza provides us with a tangible reminder of our nation’s collective strength and resolve. Though loved ones died, and a nation was profoundly altered, our spirit remains intact. In the face of loss, we carry on; following destruction, we remember, and build anew.”

We do continue to need this kind of tangible reminder, not only of our nation’s strength and resolve, but of what our nation suffered. And in the midst of a shocking altering of our nation once again in the current economic and political crisis, we need once more to build anew. But as we go forward, we must never forget those who died on 9/11, such as Gordy Aamoth.

Photos of Spirit Plaza, and links to other 9/11 memorials around the country are available at Waymarking.

 

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