All over East Flatbush, where Williams grew up, and Williamsburg — where he was found dead in his apartment on Sept.

“Seeing him win the Emmy would be so beautiful,” said Washington.

After he survived growing up in the then dangerous and drug-riddled East Flatbush neighborhood during the bloody 1980s and ’90s, friends and family are in shock that Williams was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose in his luxurious waterfront penthouse in Williamsburg.

Back on his boyhood turf, the housing complex then known as Vanderveer Estates and now Flatbush Gardens, he was, McFadden said, “an inspiration.” When they were teenagers, “He told me I could model.

McFadden, who works in the accounting department of a car dealership on Long Island, said Williams’ encouragement had a major impact on her: “He would tell me, ‘Bril, come on, we got to get out there and do it.’”.

Washington, who works construction and has a job in his family’s liquor store, said he has been on the straight and narrow since prison — and some credit for that  goes to the support of Williams.

“He took me aside and said, ‘You gotta stay out of the way.

“From day one, Michael was an open spirit,” said Washington, gesturing toward a grassy area in the complex.

At age 23 — with two grand-theft auto charges under his belt and, he told the Hollywood Reporter, a past as a “party kid … complete with party favors” — Williams was majoring in business at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

But, as he told  National Public Radio, he saw  Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” video and “I just lost my mind.

The move caused friction at home (Williams’ father was deceased and he was raised by a single mom who ran a daycare center).

As he later said on NPR, “I … ended up homeless.” He slept where he could, survived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and snagged a spot in dance-pop Kym Sims’ “Too Blind to See It” video.

“I remember when he got cut,” Williams’ nephew Dominic Dupont — who said he will be accepting the Emmy if his uncle wins —  told The Post.

It lit the fuse on Williams’ acting career — minor roles in “Law and Order,” “The Sopranos” and “Boston Legal” followed — and he landed his career-making role as Omar Little, the gay stickup man on the “The Wire,” in 2002.

“One day I saw Michael and I said to him, ‘So where do you get all that gangster stuff for the Omar character?’” boyhood friend Ian Locke told The Post.

“Every year, for my birthday, he got me a beautiful Diane von Furstenberg dress,” said McFadden

Dupont also remembers big meals with his never-married uncle — “He loved oxtail with rice and peas, conch fritters, conch chowder” — and watching how Williams dealt with fame

While Williams had admitted in a 2012 interview to doing drugs “in scary places with scary people” while starring in “The Wire, Washington can’t get past the timing of it all, figuring that Williams  was beyond the danger zone