Carmen Corrigan, a longtime Norwood resident who carved a life for herself in the neighborhood–married and raising two sons, one of whom went on to an established movie and television career– while also establishing herself as a prolific artist mesmerized by the neighborhood, died on Nov. 30 at age 79 after a long fight with cancer.

Corrigan is best known for her body of work that immortalized the borough’s landscapes, notably Mosholu Parkway, the lush greenway serving as the cornerstone to the neighborhood’s character. Over the years, Corrigan became something of a loving stalwart for Norwood, updating her old neighbors on the goings-on at the north Bronx neighborhood through Facebook.

Born Carmen Leon on May 15, 1940 in Puerto Rico, Corrigan was a lifelong student of art, open to the medium’s power. Part of the second wave of Puerto Ricans migrating from the island to New York City, Corrigan moved with her family to the South Bronx at age four, later attending the High School of Art and Design in Midtown Manhattan before enrolling at the School of Visual Arts. Her undying love for impressionism, blotches of color blended to form  contours of landscapes or faces, inspired a career in the arts. Corrigan also had developed a skill for sculpting.

“There’s so much of her in her work,” said Kevin Corrigan, her son who went on to become an established actor in Hollywood, whose film credits include “Goodfellas,” “The Pineapple Express,” and “Unstoppable”. Kevin also starred in the Netflix series “The Get Down,” which transported viewers back to life in the Bronx during the 1970s.

Carmen married her late husband Kenneth Corrigan on Feb. 6, 1965. Along with Kevin, Carmen had another son, Kenneth Jr. The Corrigans moved to Norwood in 1977, living on the sixth floor of a seven-story building that overlooks Mosholu Parkway and JHS 80. She never moved. For Kevin, that devotion to the parkway stemmed largely from its visceral splendor, a feast for the eyes on any given day.

“My parents never left Mosholu Parkway. When the neighborhood changed, and everybody started moving away, that was just never part of the plan for my folks. They loved it there. They loved where they lived,” said Kevin.

While Mosholu Parkway served as Carmen’s go-to source for inspiration, she would go beyond it, bringing her assortment of acrylics, pastels, and oil colors to paint landscapes at Wave Hill or the New York Botanical Garden. She also experimented with profile paintings, using models that were available at the Arts Students League.

“There were 30 or 40 portraits of all kinds of people. A very diverse array of different people who would come into the Arts Students League to make a few bucks modeling for the students there. You wondered who they were. You wonder what their stories were. Your imagination can take off when you look at my mother’s paintings of these people,” said Kevin.

Carmen garnered much success throughout her life, showcasing her work at various galleries that included the Kingsbridge Riverdale Van Cortlandt Development Corporation, Montefiore Medical Center, and the Salvation Army. Her work has been incorporated into collections both public and corporate, including the Tudor Investment Corporation, Auburn Technical Services Group, and the U.S. Navy. There’s also a portrait of famed New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio, which Carmen was commissioned to paint for a private art collector.

She also made room to offer words of encouragement to burgeoning artists, including her son. “I got the literal motherlode of encouragement, as far as my own creative pursuits,” said Kevin. “To be in her world…was to creatively be free.”

Her love of neighborhood pulled like-minded friends into her orbit, among them Sheila Sanchez, a resident and community activist in Norwood. The two met after Sanchez learned a hawk, a rare sighting in Norwood, had built a nest on Carmen’s fire escape. Sanchez soon learned Carmen, though reserved, was outspoken over conditions at the parkway.

“She was someone I could look up to as a reason to keep fighting for the community,” said Sanchez. “She may not have gone to a meeting, but she will reach someone like me. She would call straight to the community board. She kept her eyes open and she would post it on social media, and make complaints about it, and make it public. She would not keep her mouth shut.”

Sheila paid her respects to Carmen at a wake held at Hodder Farenga Funeral Home in Yonkers, NY, which doubled as an exhibition paying tribute to Carmen’s work.

Carmen was buried alongside her husband, who died in February 2016, at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in Throggs Neck. She is survived by her sons Kevin and Kenneth, her brothers Sam and Manuel, and three grandchildren.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.