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A stray white cat, eyes burning yellow, drags its tail along the uneven sidewalk; flies frolic about the chipped green patio frame tenuously attached to one of the rowhouses; and on the front facade of the structure - tucked between clumps of black tar and a disconnected water pipe - hangs a satellite dish that city officials are working to exile about six feet to the left.
"Not getting people to school or fighting more crime - they're worrying about satellites," says Williams, 22.
She pauses, glancing back toward the block's cascade of plastic crescents.
"I mean, it is ugly."
City Councilman Darrell L. Clarke has introduced a bill, expected to come to a final vote Thursday, intended to curb the presence of such technological eyesores for city residents.
In recent years, Clarke says, the proliferation of satellite television - like "rabbit ear" antennas before it - has littered the Philadelphia streetscape.
On his small Fishtown block, four satellite dishes are clustered within feet of one another, barely above the doorways of two neighboring homes.
"Having to have a dish on the front of the house when you're pointing it to the sky - I don't understand that," Clarke said. "This is a reasonable approach to maintaining . . . the aesthetics of our city."
Among the bill's key provisions: Property owners must either move dishes off front facades or submit a written statement, signed by the satellite installer, indicating that no other spot yields a quality signal based on "actual testing conducted at the site." Another clause calls for property owners to remove inactive dishes.
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