West Hill is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the eastern end of the city, in the former suburb of Scarborough. It is roughly bounded by Scarborough Golf Club Road and a branch of Highland Creek on the west, the CNR railway tracks and Lake Ontario on the south, and Highland Creek on the north-east. The name comes from its elevated position on the west side of Highland Creek, a deep glacial ravine.
The section east of Manse Road, which roughly splits this neighbourhood in half, is often now referred to as the Manse Valley neighbourhood. It has less commercial development and more industrial development than the western part of the neighbourhood. However, both parts were treated as part of West Hill prior to development.
Due to its position on the main road from Toronto to Kingston, there was a post office named "West Hill" from the mid 19th Century until the 1990s. From 1906 until the closing of the line in 1936, West Hill was the eastern terminus of the Toronto and Scarborough Electric Railway, a street-car line. West Hill Public School is one of the oldest in Toronto, a school having been built on the present site in the 1880s, although the original building was replaced by a modern facility in 1994. West Hill Collegiate Institute is also an older high school in Scarborough, having been opened in 1955. The other major high schools serving the area are Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute on the other side of Highland Creek and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute in the Guildwood neighbourhood.
The main routes through West Hill are Kingston Road (part of the former Highway 2), Morningside Avenue and Lawrence Avenue East.
Before the completion of Highway 401 in the 1960s, West Hill was one of the major shopping areas in the region. In the 1950s, it served communities as far away as Oshawa. However, as development spread east and north along the new highway, major commercial developments became less viable. A major regional shopping centre, Morningside Mall, built in the late 1970s, was left without a major tenant when Wal-Mart, Dominion, and Shoppers Drug Mart abandoned the mall. Morningside Mall was completely demolished as of late 2007, and has been replaced by Morningside Crossing, a plaza.
Another change occasioned by the building of Highway 401 was a drop in business for the large number of motels lining Kingston Road. Most of the motel sites have been redeveloped as commercial sites, and many of the remaining motels serve as temporary housing for Toronto's homeless.
There are many people of British, Irish, Scottish and Black Canadian heritage living in West Hill.