Michael with fiancé, Catherine

Michael with family

Michael and sister, Marian

Michael with sister, Marian on St. Patrick's day

Family Photo

Michael with family

Photo of Michael with family

Photo of Michael with his family

Photo of Michael with family

Photo of Michael with his family

Photo of Michael with friends

Photo of Michael with friends and family at a hockey game


Photo of Michael with family at brother Gerard's wedding

Michael at sports game with brother, Gerard and nephew, Jack

Michael and Marian ice skating

Michael with family

Michael with his friend, Andy

Michael and Catherine

Michael and Fr. Prior

Michael with friends

Michael and friends

Michael and Jack at the firehouse

Michael and Jack

Michael and Laura at Christmas

Michael and Laura ice skating

Michael and Liam at Christmas time

Michael and Marian


Michael and his mother, Mary

Michael and Ryan

Michael with his father, Gabriel


Michael with Chris, John, and Greg

Michael with friends at Boston Garden

Michael, Breen and Elmo

Michael, Jimmy, and Jack at the firehouse

Michael with his mother and father at Alcatraz

Michael with family on St.Patrick's Day

Michael with fiancé, Catherine
Seat in Fordham University gym dedicated to Michael

Award given to Michael

Wedding items for Michael and Catherine

Michael's wedding ring

Wedding church service for Michael and Catherine

Michael and Catherine's wedding invitations

Wedding invitation for Michael and Catherine

Michael's Loyola class ring

Michael's Loyola class ring

Robert I. Gannon award from Loyola given to Michael

Robert I. Gannon award from Loyola given to Michael

Michael's Turtle Bay shirt

Michael's Turtle Bay shirt

WTC bracelets worn by Michael's loved ones

WTC bracelets worn by Michael's loved ones
Michael's prayer card
Article written about Michael's friends naming pub after him

Article tribute to Michael
Michael with sister Marian at Christmas

Michael with siblings, Gerard and Marian as children

Kindergarten portrait of Michael

Michael, Gerard, and Marian

Portrait of Michael as a young boy
Excerpt about scholarship fund in Michael's name at Loyola

Poster for commemorative golf game in honor of Michael

Novel written by Michael's sister, Marian Armstrong about the loss of a sibling

Novel written by Michael's sister, Marian Armstrong about the loss of a sibling

Fordham University degree

House of Representatives tribute to Michael

Drawing of Michael

Fordham article tribute to Michael

Fordham article tribute to Michael


Portrait of Michael

Program for "Posse's Winter Ball" put on by Michael J. Armstrong Memorial Foundation, February 8, 2003

Memorial program for Michael
Loyola graduation program, May 31, 1985

Loyola graduation program, May 31, 1985

Loyola graduation program, May 31, 1985

Loyola graduation program, May 31, 1985
Irish Recorder dedicating issue to Michael Armstrong

Irish Recorder dedicating issue to Michael Armstrong

Irish Recorder dedicating issue to Michael Armstrong
Fordham University Gym Seat
NYU Shimkin Lobby
Sept. 11 Memorial Longford Town Council
MJ Armstrong's Public House
Boston College 9/11 Memorial Labyrinth
Michael Armstrong Bench
Rockland County American Patriot Garden
Queen Elizabeth II September 11 Memorial Garden
Conseleya 9/11 Memorial
He was hungry early on. Somewhere on a home-movie reel from 1969 a chubby-legged toddler still waddles about wearing an oversized bib, a small foreshadowing of an insatiable appetite that would not be satisfied by food alone. Ten years later he had become the master of restraint, often making a chocolate bar last a whole week. With Mike, the things he loved in life were always savored. A native New Yorker, he loved his city with a passion. He loved people. He loved good food. He loved sharing good food. He loved a long talk that would carry into the early hours of the next day. He loved defending an underdog. He loved a good dig. He loved a good comeback. He loved a big crowd. He loved sports. He loved the excitement that hangs in the air before a big game. He loved loyalty. He loved the loyalty of a good friend. He loved. He loved as well as anyone can love.
Circumstances did not beckon him to find himself until the end of his sophomore year at Xavier High School in lower Manhattan, a school his older brother had graduated from two years before. Mike was not happy there, and his poor grades reflected it. In the spring he was asked to find another school, and in the fall, a season that usually brings about wilting, he began to flourish. He started his junior year at Loyola High School, a small school in the heart of Yorkville. Loyola was halfway through administering a high school education to many of Mike’s elementary school friends. The prodigal son had come home, home to a school that would have welcomed him with a partial scholarship two years before but was now understandably tentative about taking a risk on a kid who no longer showed much promise on paper.
He put his best foot forward, however, and it didn’t take him long to show everyone that he was well worth the effort. While never a straight-A student, he did well at Loyola. He cared, not merely about the difference he could make for himself but the difference he could make for others. His quintessential talents lay far deeper than getting respectable grades. His true gifts, the ones that flowed from him so effortlessly, were much more far reaching. He was wonderful with people. He was a natural public servant, and his classmates soon saw it. At the end of his junior year, his first year at Loyola, he was elected president of the student body. And so began a love affair that would see him well in to adulthood. He worked tirelessly for Loyola for the next seventeen years of his life. Always eager to see old friends and make new ones, he would be at Loyola fundraisers with bells on.
After graduating from Loyola, he attended Syracuse University in upstate New York, but again the fit wasn’t right. After a year, he came back to his beloved New York City, but not without having cemented several more lifelong friendships at Syracuse, for embracing people from all walks of life always came naturally. It was on to Fordham University in the Bronx, and again, a perfect match. While at Fordham, he acquired the nickname Posse, or Poss for short. While rumors abound regarding the origin of the name, most seem to believe it is derived from the popular slang word for group, which, since he always had large numbers with him, seems to be a legitimate theory. Again, the friendships made at Fordham were of soul-piercing quality. Many of them got stronger after graduation. New ones were born at alumni events.
As a fellow Fordham alumnus twenty years Mike’s senior put it best, “I knew we would be friends for the rest of our lives. We were suffering from the same disease. We both loved Fordham.” With Mike, there were no boundaries when it came to forging a new alliance—not age, not race, not religion. A superb judge of character, he had a way of cutting straight through to the essence of what really mattered in an individual. Having been the recipient of second chances himself, he was quick to give someone the benefit of the doubt. He knew what it was like to stumble, yet he repeatedly found his way. He was eager to see others do the same. He was wonderfully human. His sweet disposition and hardworking nature paved the way for many progressions throughout his eleven years in the working world. He left his first job as a credit analyst with the factoring firm Milberg Factors in August 1992 to join the Office of Management and Budget for the City of New York, where he worked as a budget analyst for over four years under David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani while he put himself through graduate school at night.
His newly acquired master’s degree and his appetite for the financial world led him to his role as director of investor relations at The Bond Buyer, a publication for the municipal bond industry, before he joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 1999. He became a vice president of electronic trading at Cantor, where his love and admiration for his colleagues ran deep. The past, and Mike, is forever a part of us. Somewhere on a home-movie reel from 1969 a toddler still walks. Only now, when we view him, we know how steady and sure those steps became. We know what paths those feet took. We know the difference he made to all of us. Michael J. Armstrong is survived by his fiancée, his family, and innumerable friends.
Thinking of you today, Mike…
Thinking of you today, Mike. Still so unreal. Holding on to the last time we chatted, at Howie's wake. Forever young, forever smiling. Never forgotten.
Posted by Beth Dowling
We miss you.
Hard to believe it has been 22 years. Your friends haven’t forgotten you. A little bit of you lives on in all our hearts.
Posted by Marc Denker
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