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@ Photo credits. Getty Images cs. Curbstone brokers. From the early 1800s to 1921 the New York Curb Market traded stocks outside, on the curbs of the financial district. Some traders eventually moved inside and founded the New York Stock Exchange. Others kept trading outside and came to be known as curbstone brokers. In 1873 the curb brokers moved their operations to Broad Street in Manhattan, where they were allowed to trade between Exchange Place and Beaver Street. The New York Curb Market brokers had unwritten territorial rights to lampposts and other easily detected street structures, where they could be quickly spotted by their clerks. Often trading in speculative stocks in small industrial companies, such as iron, textiles, and chemicals, visitors witnessed a roaring, swirling crowd of curb brokers shouting and waiving signals to clerks hanging from the windows of surrounding buildings. Orders for securities were shouted down from the windows of nearby brokerages, and sales execution orders were shouted back up to the brokerages. On June 25, 1921, the curb brokers held their last outdoor session.