How to look at files in Terminal?

I was told to delete /usr/local folder in order to fix a messed up install.

But I'm not sure how to view the files first because I don't see a way to view such in Finder.

If this can only be done via Terminal then what commands can I use to view the folders and files under another folder?

Thank you in advance for any help!

Explaining why the delete

I had a fail install on Homebrew and was trying to fix it.

The first response was to delete that folder which obviously would not attempt to do at here:
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues/14319

The guy had recommended the following a little more below and it had worked for me:
/usr/bin/curl -skSfL https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/tarball/master | /usr/bin/tar xz -m --strip 1'

But until your posts above I wasn't sure where the /usr folder resided.
Even just using ls alone as a command it doesn't appear until you first do cd /.../....

That's crazy!