Built in 1962, Forest Hill branch presides on a rise of land located on the north side of Eglinton Avenue West, just east of Bathurst. It has a wide central aisle flanked by four large arches which span well-spaced rows of shelving. Each arch contains a wavy piece of metal in its top third. Silver mesh occupies the space between the curved metal and the apex of the arch.
I enjoyed walking down the main aisle, noting the large fiction collection, young adult grotto furnished with a red recliner, solid ESL offerings, and an unmarked Hebrew and Yiddish section. Apart from kits for learning Russian and French, Forest Hill branch didn’t have the diverse multilingual collections I was used to seeing in Scarborough. It was also less crowded and more hushed than most of the branches east of the Don Valley Parkway, especially Woodside Square, Steeles, Agincourt, Malvern, Cedarbrae, Albert Campbell, and Pape Danforth.
Without a patron or stroller in sight, the Forest Hill children’s section was completely quiet. A forlorn train set rested on a ledge above the raised and enclosed pre-school area. The train’s body was composed of five boxes in varying sizes. They were covered in fading red, yellow, and blue construction paper, but the sixth box, the engine car, was decorated in black. While each box had two cardboard wheels each, the engine box had some extra features. For a chimney, it sprouted a cardboard tube (a recycled paper-towel spool), and an opaque white plastic bag puffed out of the chimney as steam. All six boxes carried a word, which together announced, “All Aboard the Forest Hill Express!”.
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