Rittenhouse Row’s executive director, Corie Moskow, gazes out of Rouge’s signature floor-to-ceiling windows one summer afternoon. She’s excited that Walnut Street retail is starting to blossom after more than two grueling pandemic years. She can’t stop talking about the 47 new stores scheduled to open in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood in the coming months, 26 of which are on Walnut Street.

Among the coolest: Gorjana, a funky costume and fine jewelry boutique, and Brooklinen, the dreamy bedding store. Glossier, the celebrity-endorsed makeup line that’s a fave of Olivia Rodrigo, will be a neighborhood game changer when it opens, Moskow says. She is delighted about Physique 57, a barre studio nestled on the second floor of the 1625 building, and she can’t wait for the New York-based fitness complex Equinox to open its doors in the 1900 block next year.

The post-pandemic Walnut Street boom includes the largest spate of new retail activity since the late 1980s, when city planners and real estate brokers embarked on a similar mission to restore the city’s high street to its former mid-20th-century glory.

Walnut Street started to wither before the pandemic. Many of the independently owned boutiques that gave Walnut Street its panache, shuttered or moved to Chestnut Street in the last decade. Specialty stores closed, to the dismay of the city’s well-heeled fashionistas — who, if we are keeping it real, preferred to shop in New York anyway — and were replaced with cell-phone retailers, banks, and boutique gyms.

This isn’t destination shopping, the fashion-obsessed whined.

But Walnut has long been Philadelphia’s high street, its most pristine avenue with the city’s chicest stores, where sophisticated people eat, live, work, play, and, of course, shop. High streets — think Newbury Street in Boston or the Miracle Mile in Chicago — bend to the economy, but they never fall out of favor because they are not affected by periods of disinvestment and white flight to the suburbs. In fact, areas around high streets are often where the cool kids come to live before abandoning the city for McMansions in better school districts.

Moskow expects Philadelphians and newcomers will want to put down roots in the area.

“We see Rittenhouse Row’s Walnut Street as a place that has everything people need for upscale living,” said Moskow, who is in her 18th year as the nonprofit’s executive director. Rittenhouse Row celebrated the return of area retail in time for fall and holiday season with a grand-opening party last week. “Walnut Street retail is sophisticated, it’s worldly, it’s happy, it’s discoverable, and it’s covetable.”

The post-pandemic Walnut Street — between Broad and 20th Street — is a racially and ethnically diverse commerce hub where people converge to shop, see, and be seen.

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Walnut was where parasols were twirled and white gloves donned. In later decades, women in Dior suits, Chanel jackets, Halston sheaths, Seven jeans, and lululemon sweats lunched and brunched.

In keeping with that upscale history, Tiffany & Co., Aritizia, Outdoor Voices, and Rescue Rittenhouse will all call Walnut Street home. J.Crew moved from The Shops at Liberty Place on Chestnut in the spring to the former home of Talbots at 19 Walnut, where the retailer has already reported an increase in sales. J.Crew’s prairie-dress inspired sister, Madewell, is expanding into a new space at 1729.

Like changing consumer habits, high streets aren’t staid. This is especially true now as many traditional businesses on Walnut are being replaced with brands that originated online and now have brick-and-mortar showrooms like the sustainable shoe brand Allbirds, the men’s shirt company UNTUCKit, and the popular-on-Pinterest bridal boutique, Grace Loves Lace.

Walnut Street’s revolving slate of tenants could be considered a liability, especially as large commercial spaces — such as the former Gap at 1510 Walnut St. — remain empty. Fashion purists are still bummed that luxury brands like Ralph Lauren and Burberry exited years ago. They view this latest iteration of Walnut Street as a high street that completely lacks cachet, or a harbinger of the city’s decline. But the street’s transiency is also its hallmark because every generation has remade the avenue despite critics’ despair.

The truth is Walnut has been in flux since the late 19th century, when its original brick-makers, railroad tycoons, and bankers left their mansions on the western edge of Rittenhouse Square and fled to the burbs. In many cases, the remaining buildings were razed and replaced with luxury apartment buildings.

In 1939, Nan Duskin opened her eponymous specialty boutique at what is now 1723-1729 Walnut, laying the groundwork for Walnut’s tony retail reputation by bringing European designers like Chanel and Dior to high street. The boutique was a favorite of Princess Grace of Monaco when she came home to Philly, and it was the prototype for many of today’s high-fashion retailers like Joan Shepp and Sophy Curson.

The 1700 block was home to the city’s swankiest retail addresses through the late 1980s, when the then-Bellevue-Stratford underwent a $100 million renovation and Ralph Lauren opened a flagship store in its lobby. Gucci left its salon at Wanamakers for the Bellevue, too. The Bellevue became the entryway to more chic stores. Burberry, Banana Republic, United Colors of Benetton, Tiffany & Co., Eddie Bauer, and Armani confirmed the belief that Walnut west of Broad was on its way to becoming Philadelphia’s Fifth Avenue.

Walnut Street rents spiked from around $35 a square foot to $65, costing the average shopkeeper nearly $100,000 a year. Philly businesses began to complain they were being squeezed out. Nan Duskin closed her boutique in 1988 and was replaced by another national brand, Borders bookstore. Genteel shoppers mourned the end of the boutique, but the bookstore brought nightlife to Walnut Street as daytime shoppers preferred going to the mall.

In fact, major department stores Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor moved to King of Prussia Mall in the early 1990s after its first major expansion. HBO’s Sex and the City and the increasing popularity of New York Fashion Week made high fashion more attainable. Though Center City lost out to designer boutiques like Tory Burch, Walnut Street was still popping as fashion continued to democratize.

Through the early aughts, Joan Shepp’s eponymous designer boutique carried designers off the pages of Vogue like Junya Watanabe, Ann Demeulemeester, and Rick Owens, while Knit Wit — a joint fashion venture of Ann Gitter, Don Davidow, and Bob Brandt — specialized in high-end denim ranging from Seven to Citizens. Borders left Walnut for Chestnut Street in 2003, and in moved Steve Madden, H&M, and Ann Taylor Loft.

» READ MORE: JOAN SHEPP CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF STYLE

High fashion merged with fast fashion, but designer presence on Walnut Street was on its last leg, a by-product of the 2007 recession and the fact that old-school fashionistas preferred to shop for designer wares in King of Prussia, New York, and on the more convenient internet.

“High-end retail didn’t prove to be a very successful model for the street,” said Larry Steinberg, senior managing director at the real estate Colliers International. “We didn’t get the tourism dollars here. How do you compete against Manhattan? You can’t.”

Retailers also couldn’t compete with high real estate costs.

By 2016, rents on Walnut Street were well north of $100 a square foot, forcing Shepp and Gitter to move their iconic stores to Chestnut Street. Cell-phone stores, drugstores, and banks gobbled up lots on Walnut Street, while Coach, Michael Kors, Armani Exchange, and, eventually, Ralph Lauren and Mary K. Dougherty’s Nicole Miller closed their doors.

Digitally native businesses like Warby Parker also started to spring up, as did specialty fitness centers like Core Power Yoga, appealing to the customer who valued wellness over clothing. Blowout salons, coffee shops, wine bars, and lash bars also opened. Walnut Street was emerging as a lifestyle street.

The lack of foot traffic on Walnut Street, stemming from the pandemic, forced businesses like Lucky, Banana Republic, and Gap to close. The 24,000-square-foot Gap parcel at 1510 Walnut St. is among the half-dozen large spaces on Walnut that remain empty. McDonald’s, Vans, and Dr. Martens were destroyed in the violence that erupted in the days after George Floyd was murdered. And throughout the last two years, many asked whether the street was in inevitable decline.

Yet, brokers are hopeful. Vans and Dr. Martens reopened at 1702 and 1704, respectively. They also point to a mix of new lifestyle brands and more housing coming to the neighborhood. When The Laurel opens next year, the luxury complex on the 1900 block will feature condominiums and a $25 million penthouse suite. Foot traffic is up, too; despite the empty offices, it’s at 85% of pre-pandemic levels, according to a report by the Center City District.

The question, however, remains: Can you have a high street without haute couture as its focus? The executives at Lubert Adler, the financiers of the $100 million Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, think so. Instead of bringing in high fashion, Leonard Klehr, Lubert Adler’s vice president, confirmed that the concourse and lobby will offer a mixture of food and beverage and entertainment. Plans include a new gym facility and an ice-skating rink on the rooftop. “We know the history and the importance of the Bellevue as an entryway to Walnut Street and we respect its history and prestige as we strive to make it even better than it was before.”

We will never restore Walnut Street to its mid-20th-century glory, nor will Walnut Street be Philadelphia’s Fifth Avenue. But it will remain a high street. “Philly can have and deserves nice things and Walnut Street is where our nice things are,” Steinberg said. “That will not change.”