Actually my home town area in NY was where the HUGE mafia bust went down years ago. The whole area up here used to be heavily mafia, but it was one of the safest places to live. Since times have changed, the whole area has gotten seedy and dangerous and disgusting.
IBM was born there. I’ll bet they rubbed elbows plenty with the “mob”. In fact, used to be that if you were walking down the sidewalk half of the other pedestrians were likely “mob” connected. Most of the best restaurants too.
Sneering at that demographic is still a very bad idea.
“used to be heavily mafia, but it was one of the safest places to live”
Same with Boston’s North End..heavy Italian and Mafia, but you could walk through at 2:00am and not have a worry
My father-in-law's dad was a New York detective before discovering he could make a lot more money and with a lot more safety by moving to California as a private eye. Taking pictures of cheating husbands carried a lot less risk than infiltrating the mob, just to name one example.
While his family roots were Sicilian, he was a second generation Puerto Rican, so very handy for developing trust with two big communities in New York, back in the day.
What most people don't know is that lots of the locals respected the mob, sort of as a shadow or alternative government. They had standards. For instance, if there was an apartment fire or the like in their 'hood, they would be there with blankets, food carts and assistance to find alternative housing and such. And they wouldn't deal in drugs. Narcotics harmed kids and they drew the line there. If some freelancer showed up to deal in drugs, said dealer would often be found dangling from a lamp post early some cold morning a few days later. The police would investigate the stranger's execution, but not very diligently. You probably know what I mean.