who came up with the idea of jersey shore
Jersey Shore (TV series) VH1 producer Anthony Beltempo proposed the idea of a show focusing on the "guido" lifestyle for TV, in the form of a competition series. Executive producer SallyAnn Salsano, who previously worked on A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, devised a new concept, inspired by her own summers in a Jersey summer shore house, and retained casting director Doron Ofir to find the cast. MTV Networks President Van Toffler felt that the series "loud, young, bold" style was better suited to MTV's sensibilities than VH1, and MTV programming executive Tony DiSanto felt that "[After The Hills], it was time to go for a more authentic approach, like a documentary." Van Toffler described the casting process by saying they looked for "candor, honesty, boldness and a very combustible, chaotic mess. You could honestly say none of these people were traditionally beautiful."[18]
Ellis Island Originally much of the west shore of Upper New York Bay consisted of large tidal flats which hosted vast oyster banks, a major source of food for the Lenape population who lived in the area prior to the arrival of Dutch settlers. There were several islands which were not completely submerged at high tide. Three of them (later to be known as Liberty Island, Black Tom Island and Ellis Island) were given the name Oyster Islands by the settlers of New Netherland, the first European colony in the region. The oyster beds remained a major source of food for nearly three centuries.[20][21][22] Landfilling to build the railyards of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey eventually obliterated the oyster beds, engulfed one island, and brought the shoreline much closer to the others.[23] During the colonial period, Little Oyster Island was known as Dyre's, then Bucking Island. In the 1760s, after some pirates were hanged from one of the island's scrubby trees, it became known as Gibbet Island.[24] It was acquired by Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker and merchant possibly from Wales, around the time of the American Revolution.[25] In 1785, he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the island:[26]