Here's how the public right of way on Chapel Street looked this morning. With an overgrown, abandoned sidewalk, this cobblestone street near Merrill Auditorium in Portland's Bayside neighborhood has long been neglected. But today was the Bayside Neighborhood Association's Spring Clean-Up Day, and neighbors joined staff from the city's Public Services department to embrace the street and make it a more attractive part of our downtown community.

After three hours and lots of helping hands, here's the result. Isn't it amazing! Everyone did such a wonderful job.

There's still more to be done, and ideas being floated include adding trees, planting flowers, installing more lighting, uncovering the brick sidewalk, putting in a mountain bike trail and building raised beds for a community garden. It will be interesting to see what we're able to accomplish.

Plans under consideration by the Portland City Council for they Bayside Trail call for designating Chapel Street as a pedestrian street and service alley. After today's volunteers removed much of the overgrowth and mulched the elms, it's much easier to envision this street being part of the urban trail.

In addition to sprucing up Chapel Street, dozens of volunteers picked up hundreds of pounds of trash across the neighborhood, which stretches from Congress Street to Marginal Way and from Franklin Arterial to Forest Avenue. A number of elected representatives lent a hand, including Senator Justin Alfond (left), who's standing with Deb Locke, the head of the group organizing this year's Bayside World Market & Fair, and Alex Landry, who's chair of the Bayside Neighborhood Association.

Mayor Jill Duson came out to help, shown here flexing some muscle with neighbor Tom Trott.

We also had help from Bayside's City Councilor Kevin Donoghue (left), shown here with neighbors Rob Sylvain and Alex Landry.

Finally here are some of the people who did the heavy lifting on Chapel Street. If you're in the area, you really should take a stroll down Chapel Street and check out their handiwork.