Business

The past year’s wild, weird and wacky Boston business stories

December 29, 2016

1 minute to read

Wait a minute. Did that really happen? We started 2016 with the news that General Electric, one of the biggest companies on the planet, wanted to build its headquarters on a once forlorn scrap of South Boston where punk bands used to roam the stage at the Channel. And we finished the year with a real estate mogul-turned-reality TV star heading to the White House. The business world often gives birth to oddball stories, but things took a much stranger turn in 2016. From dinosaurs to doughnuts, here are just a few local examples that caused us to raise our eyebrows.

Best rescue from extinction

It’s been a big time of change for that bastion of Boston-area kitsch, Route 1 in Saugus. The Hilltop is no more. Weylu’s is long gone. And, for a while there, it looked like the beloved orange dinosaur at the Route One Miniature Golf & Batting Cages would join them.

Turns out developer Michael Barsamian is going to keep the theropod on site, possibly next to a new hotel there, as he redevelops the place into a mixed-use complex. Because nothing says “rest your weary head” like a cranky, radioactive-looking T-Rex.

But the golf course’s fiberglass stallion? Last time we checked, it was headed to Ernie Boch Jr.’s mansion, a stone’s throw from a different part of Route 1, in Norwood.