For most of the 20th century, the corner of North 13th and Rosemont Streets marked one of Reading’s busiest pieces of the apparel trade. David Crystal’s Reading operations stitched New York–designed dresses, finished precut garments, and—by the Izod/Lacoste era—handled everything from corporate offices and warehousing to the famous crocodile logo work on-site. The company’s local footprint helped power the factory-to-outlet evolution that put Reading on bus tour itineraries nationwide.
David Crystal activity in Reading reaches back to the 1920s, when the firm was an early adopter of factory “outlet” selling on Moss Street (listed at 1141 Moss Street)—one reason Reading is often credited as a forerunner of the outlet idea. By mid-century, stitching and finishing work tied to New York cutting rooms was routine at Reading plants like Dorsyl Dress (7th & Washington). A new plant complex at 13th & Rosemont was built in 1960, anchoring the company’s northeast-side presence (the complex is often referenced as 13th & Rockland and listed at 2101 N. 13th St.). David Crystal also occupied two buildings belonging to the former Rosedale Knitting Mills in Muhlenberg Township. In 1969, the company was acquired by General Mills; later, General Mills’ apparel assets were spun out as Crystal Brands in 1985. Locally, the Izod/Lacoste Golf & Tennis division operated “entirely in Reading,” with corporate offices, warehousing, and logo stitching done in town—functions tied to the 13th Street complex.
Work at the Reading dress plants was unionized early. In 1933, amid a wave of needle-trades strikes across eastern Pennsylvania, an estimated 300 David Crystal workers from Reading joined actions that pushed the company to sign a contract with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) that September. That figure gives a conservative sense of the plant’s scale during the New Deal upturn in garment organizing; later decades saw continued representation as the industry consolidated into larger brands. (Nationally, ILGWU later merged into UNITE in 1995.)…