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.
It's great that you can relate , and understand where I'm coming from . I don't condone it but I don't hold it against them/or pre judge them either . I have a long line of organized crime in my family , my mothers uncles, cousins, brothers, were and some still are all involved with LCN (they're off the boat sicilians) , her father was the only one who was legit he was actually a cop in Brooklyn , he worked in the 69 , 63, 67, 71, and 77 precincts . My dads family were all criminals they started out in the Camorra in Italy and eventually ended up with The Gambino, Lucchese, and Colombo families here . So it's kind of hard for me to hate on them when I see different sides during the holidays etc . Also when I was brought around the Gemini (lived a few doors down), the lounge,buon giorno's, the Ravenite, Bergin, Veterans, and ton of other hang outs as a kid and met a ton of these people and was given money , candy, toys, and baseball cards, learned how to play cards and shoot craps, by some of the "meanest" gangsters or most "ruthless" murders but to me they were just nice fat italian guys to me who taught me bad words in italian and spoiled us kids . Reading about all of them now and being in Law Enforcement myself it's obvious that I feel for their victims families but I never knew that side of them . One guy I will say was always kind of a dick was Gotti , Charles Carneglia always creeped me out too . He was nice but I'd throw any candy away or give it away if he gave it to us .
