Man do I ever love this building.
I remember being fascinated with the Buckner building ever since I first saw it. When I was a kid, my family would periodically take a day trip out to Whittier, just to get out of town for a bit. We’d walk around the harbor a bit, have some diner food at what I’m reasonably sure is the town’s only year round restaurant, and see the sights, such that they are. I think the main attraction was supposed to be the natural beauty to be found surrounding the place, but my eyes would always wander to the monolithic ruin that dwarfs every other man made structure around it.
Finally, on one such trip, I convinced my dad and my brother to go in with me, just for a few minutes. My mom wasn’t at all up for it, but in this case the majority won and we pulled the family minivan over on the crumbling road that abuts the building. I grabbed my mini maglite and the dinky Kodak Easyshare that was the only digital camera we had at the time, and raced out the door to clamber over the snow berm that consumed the first floor and disappear into the bowels of the building through an open fire escape.
I eagerly sped through the debris strewn corridors and waterlogged rooms of the building’s massive interior, snapping pictures haphazardly as I went. The light I’d brought barely lit the way in the inner parts of the above snow line zones of the building, so the lower reaches eluded me. I’d barely begun to explore the daylit upper floor we’d come in on before the others caught up to me and suggested we might want to get back to my mother waiting outside.
She was less than pleased when we finally emerged back out into the daylight, soaking wet and reeking of the ruin. Apparently her presence got some odd looks from locals driving by. Hard to be inconspicuous in a town of less than two hundred people I guess.
Motherly ire failed to dampen my excitement, of course. I’d end up revisiting Whittier’s largest eyesore several more times in the years to follow.
