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Nearly 150 homeless women and staff members, who had sat downmoments before for lunch near a donated Christmas tree, were routedyesterday by a fire that authorities said was deliberately set in a storage room of a city-owned women's shelter on First Avenue in Manhattan.
The two-alarm fire, which started shortly after 2 p.m. near one of the many mattresses stored in the fourth-floor room, damaged the top half of the 93-year-old former school, which is listed in the national historic register and was being used temporarily to shelter homeless women.
"This is a hell of a Christmas present," said one of the women, clutching a shopping bag filled with her possessions. Only a...