A late spring deadline to open Watertown’s new porcelain palace has been postponed.
The American Sanitary Plumbing Museum, aka “the Toilet Museum,” formerly famous in Worcester, will instead be open to the public in September or October, according to Tom Palange, marketing director for J.C. Cannistraro LLC, the plumbing contracting business that will house the historic bowls.
Palange said the toilets have been shipped to Watertown and a new space for them has been renovated off Pleasant Street. But plans are still being ironed out for the design and placement of the artifacts.
“We want to make it more of an experience,” he said, “make the sure the museum gets all the attention it needs.”
The museum will be relocated to a 150-year-old former icehouse located on the property on Rosedale Road.
John Cannistraro Jr., president of J.C. Cannistraro LLC, has said tourists and visitors in Watertown can expect an expanded display of the collection — antique commodes, wooden pipes, water heaters, chain-pull toilets and ornate porcelain thrones dating back to the early 19th century — portraying a “progression of the industry” from the 1700s through today.
The former owners of the exhibit, Russell Manoog and his wife, Bettejane, told Cannistrano the time has come to turn their museum — founded by Russell’s father in 1979 — over to the contractors that helped them out over the years. The owners decided to keeping it in the Boston area despite an offer from the Smithsonian Museum.
