Tonight, your friendly neighborhood time-travelers from the Bernal Heights History Project will talk about the origins of Bernal Heights street-names, with a particular focus on glamorous Bradford Street. It happens this evening, Thursday, February 18 at the Bernal Library:
This month’s meeting will feature a presentation on how Bradford Street got its name, and how that ties in with some other street names in Bernal Heights. We’ll have a show-and-tell session as well, so please feel free to bring photos and stories to share.
We will meet on Thursday, February 18, at 6.15 p.m. at the Bernal branch library (500 Cortland at Anderson); please use the side gate on Anderson Street to access the downstairs meeting room. There will NOT be access through the library. As always, it is free and open to all.
PHOTO: Bernal Heights Boulevard above Bradford Street, February 1931
Bernalwood 
Mostly they were named after Civil War officers.
Can’t attend, but for the unofficial record here’s the namesake of Leese Street:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_P._Leese
Esteemed Bernal journalist Lynn Ludlow wrote about some of our street names a while ago. We’ve got two articles on our site:
http://bernalhistoryproject.org/streetnames.php
http://bernalhistoryproject.org/ludlow.php