As a journalism major at Temple University, Patrick Bilow is rooted in Philadelphia. But it’s only temporary.
At 20 years old, Bilow has moved from state to state. He was originally born in Beverly Hills and lived in California for a few years before moving to other places like Ohio, New Hampshire and Malone, New York — a scenic town of about 14,500 people in upstate New York where he attended high school.
Though he’s made an impact in Philadelphia as a frequent contributor to The Temple News and as an intern at the Philadelphia Citizen, Bilow hopes to find new places to explore.
Templeton: What was the worst thing about your hometown?
Patrick Bilow: When I lived in my hometown, like high school, I was fairly miserable. That was a little bit of like, high school, but also I think it was Malone, too. … With a small town comes people that aren’t very open-minded. I mean, a lot of people have lived in my town for generations and never really set foot outside of my town ever. ... There’s a lot of like bigotry and just genuinely being not interested in anything beyond like what was conventional and I don’t know, I mean, I never really felt like that. My parents grew up there, but they lived in LA and New York and they’ve moved all over the country. So they always kind of taught me like there’s a bigger world.
T: Your hometown is about a seven-hour drive from Philadelphia. What do you miss about it the most in daily life at Temple?
PB: Right now, honestly, we’re getting hit with snow and I really really miss the snow upstate, like skiing. I think mostly just being like outside is a big one. ... I do miss that a lot because I feel like when you live in a city, like there’s no real quiet reflection time ever, like there’s just a lot going on constantly. … I definitely don’t love where I’m from but when you look at the positive, it’s definitely a place for people to think and clear their mind.
T: Coming from a small, scenic town, what was your first impression of Philadelphia?
PB: It was big and it was exciting but it wasn’t overwhelming. … We were staying in Center City the first time I visited Temple right next to City Hall and my dad and I got up one morning. We went to get a coffee...and there was a guy, a barista, that was actually a Temple grad, and so I was telling him I was going to visit Temple and we had like a 20-minute conversation. It turns out he was like from the town that I was born in Pasadena in LA so we just chatted for a while that day. I feel like I always run into Temple grads all the time so it’s just like it’s a city and it’s big and it’s exciting, it’s also like a community.
T: Why did you want to study journalism at Temple?
PB: I wrote a lot when I was younger. … I would read a lot and my parents really, I had no idea what journalism was until my dad and my mom kind of said, you should look into it. You should, you like to write, you want to travel. My junior year of high school is kind of when I started thinking about journalism. … Esquire was actually one of the first magazines I read, oddly enough. … [I also read] Adirondack Life, which was kind of this weird, kitchy, like very niche magazine that would circulate in the Adirondack Park in the towns that I lived in.
T: You’ve moved around a lot and seen a lot of the country. If you could go anywhere, where would you travel?
PB: I want to go overseas really, really badly. I just haven’t like found the time to do it yet...and it’s also really expensive, but I would love to go to Ireland and spend a lot of time there. Paris, I really want to go to Paris and London. I’m kind of obsessed with like the fashion industry over there so I’d like to spend some time in Italy and Milan.
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