E. Gerald Corrigan, Who Helped Ease ’87 Stock Crash, Dies at 80

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he favored flooding the financial system with cash to restore confidence among investors.

E. Gerald Corrigan, who as the aggressive president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank helped cushion Wall Street’s crash in the late 1980s, died on May 17 in a memory-care center in Dedham, Mass. He was 80.

The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his daughter Elizabeth Corrigan said.

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis from 1980 to 1984 and then of the New York Fed from 1985 to 1993, Mr. Corrigan used his prerogatives as a regulator to help resolve national and global financial crises, and to remedy some of the causes of episodic market instability.

“He played a crucial role providing the psychological reassurance for a few critical days after the stock market crash...