the centuries progressed from Dutch to British rule and finally independent America. Among the tenants of Broad Street in the 18th century was bookseller Garrat Noel. 1700s: Taverns and halls The city's first firehouse for the New York City Fire Department was built in 1736 in front of NYSE on Broad Street. Two years later, on December 16, 1737, the colony's General Assembly created the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York. The Broad Street building for the Fraunces Tavern was bought in 1762 by Samuel Fraunces, who converted the home into the popular tavern first named the Queen's Head. Before the American Revolution, the building was one of the meeting places of the secret society, the Sons of Liberty. In 1768, the New York Chamber of Commerce was founded by a meeting in the building. After a rebuilt in 1752 that added a meeting hall on the upper story, the Royal Exchange building was the location of the Chamber of Commerce in the City of New York (later Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York) from 1770 until the Revolutionary War. The United States District Court for the District of New York was one of the original 13 courts established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, and it first sat at the Royal Exchange (Merchants Exchange) building on Broad Street. 1800s: Birth of the financial district The 1835 Great Fire of New York destroyed whatever historical buildings were left from the early times of New Amsterdam/New York. Much of the street was destroyed again in the Great New York City Fire of 1845. In the first two hours of the fire's spread, it reached a large multi-story warehouse occupied by Crocker & Warren on Broad Street, where a large quantity of combustible saltpeter was stored. In July 1863, the New York Draft Riot in Manhattan became the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War. Upon the outbreak of this riot, Jacob B. Warlow and his police unit contended with a mob on Broad Street, with Warlow also helping quell other riots throughout the city from his station house on Broad Street. As the area became the center of financial activity, all smaller buildings in turn were replaced with grand banks. Most of the structures that stand today date from the turn of the 20th century. A curb market of curbstone brokers