What Is Heather Abraham’s Best of the ’Burgh?

Her Pittsburgh hidden gem is...

3 hours ago

Sean Collier,

PHOTO BY BECKY THURNER BRADDOCK

If you happened to attend Shaler Area High School at the same time as Heather Abraham, you unknowingly got a glimpse into KDKA’s future.

The host of “Pittsburgh Today Live” and “Talk Pittsburgh” first sat in front of a camera to deliver the school’s morning announcements, an extracurricular activity that led to a career. After studying broadcast journalism at West Virginia University, Abraham worked as a reporter in Brooklyn, New York, before returning to her hometown in 2010 to join KDKA-TV.

Abraham, who lives in South Fayette with her husband, Frank, and their three children, is also one of the city’s best Instagram personalities, frequently compelling the “Pittsburgh Today Live” crew to join in on TikTok-inspired trends.

We wanted to know: What’s Heather Abraham’s Best of the ’Burgh?

What’s your Pittsburgh “hidden gem,” a place that you love that doesn’t get the attention it deserves?

Emerald View Park in Mount Washington. “It’s actually 10 miles of trails. There are some older cement blocks that are still set up through there … from Olympia Park. We would tell the kids they were old witches’ houses. So it became this spooky-fun haunt of a trail for us.”

If you could only eat one local meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Tie: Primanti Bros.’ Bacon and Cheese (“Hold the tomato!”) and the Mad Mex Gobblerito.

If Pittsburgh had a theme song, what would it be?

“Renegade” by Styx. “That is going to be a very played-out, unoriginal answer, but I’m sticking with it.”

What’s the annual tradition that you wait for every year?

Picklesburgh. “I think that it’s something that’ll be around forever because [the city has] done such a good job.”

Favorite Pittsburgh appearance in a movie or on television?

Abraham names two films she was able to watch as they were filmed: “The Dark Knight Rises” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” “I was an early-morning reporter at the time, and we watched as Emma Watson was filming the [‘Wallflower’] scene [coming out of the tunnel] … to me, that’s just very special because we got to witness it.”

What’s your unpopular Pittsburgh opinion? What is something you think about the city (or a famous aspect of it) that won’t win you any friends?

“We have too much trash and too much litter … not just in the city but in [Allegheny] County. We need to do a better job of keeping our walkable areas free of dirt and litter. I also think that when you’re driving on some of our highways and you see the road-construction debris and trash on the side of the road — as we’re growing as a city and welcoming more out-of-towners, I hate that that’s the first impression that some of them get.”