I'm sometimes overcome with the desire produce a web series entitled "Shopping Mall Time Machine" focused around The Cumberland Terrace.
The moment you walk into this establishment in downtown Toronto you're transported to an early-80's Des Moines mall, withering in the wake of the 1979 energy crisis.
Trampled by lessening demand in Iowa's service industry, few establishments have been able to endure in The Cumberland.
What remains is an occult casserole of ethnic fast food eateries, inoperative escalators and establishments so arbitrary in nature that I am forced to conclude that a programmer must have written a randomization algorithm to select the collection of shops that currently occupy this mall.
The primary category of patrons to The Cumberland Centre is the homeless, but not just any homeless. These homeless range on a spectrum from somewhat mentally erratic to psychologically turbulent.
On the occasional February night that experiences an Environment Canada Severe Polar Cold warning, the Cumberland Centre still lives up to its original 1974 slogan: "The Nicest Way from Yonge to Bay" (mostly because the alternative is hypothermia, but no matter).
Unfortunately, it seems they took this slogan a little too literally because after 9pm none of the 5 sets of doors on the North side of the Cumberland Centre will let anyone in. This means that "Yonge to Bay" is the only path you're able to travel when faced with the unfortunate predicament of finding yourself within the Cumberland Centre at night.
On the bright side, it is open 24 hours and everything except for that peculiar Asian furniture emporium (which I strongly suspect is a front for an Opium smuggling operation) is extremely reasonably priced. That, coupled with the fact that The Cumberland has been growing on me (albeit like a tumor) leads me to my verdict. Two stars.