You can’t miss this ugly Cold War creation that melds into the surrounding landscape like a moose on a catwalk. Hailing from an architectural school best described as ‘brutalist,' the ginormous Buckner was constructed in 1953 to act as a kind of mini-city for Whittier’s military personnel – a function that it fulfilled for less than a decade. When the military pulled out of Whittier in 1960 the building was abandoned.
It has since fallen into disrepair, a victim of vandalism, asbestos and a lack of sufficient funds to do it up. Today it remains in limbo, too expensive to renovate but apparently too ‘historic’ to pull down.