DiNome, I really believe you that Roy was friendly to people who weren't involved in organized crime.
Now what I'm going to say isn't comparable at all to growing up in NYC, but even in a country as small as mine ( Belgium ) you can get into contact with people who are involved in organized crime. The part of the country were I live has a large Italian community. A friend of mine owns a bar dedicated to the football club AC Milan. There's one family living in that town who are known to be members of the Ndrangheta. Everybody knows that they sell heroin. But since I regularly visit the cafe, some members of the family have occasionly talked to me. And even though you know they do some bad stuff, they don't feel all that unpleasant when talking with them. They are pretty nice guys in fact ( I don't know if that's the right way to put it).
I also have another friend -an Albanian- whose dad spend more time in prison than at home, mainly for human trafficking. And we all know that human trafficking is a hideous crime, but still I visited my friend a couple of times and his dad was very friendly and welcoming to me.
All this is in no way comparable to the situation in New York, but when you say that they could be 'nice', I understand what you mean.