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During the summer of 1934, my paternal grandparents left their small East Texas home on a trip to New York City. Married for four years at the time and still without children, they both had the travel bug and tried to take out-of-state trips once or twice a year.

The reason I know this, beyond the stories I heard when I was a child, is my grandmother held on to seemingly every scrap of paper she ever touched. When my grandparents died, my aunt held on to their “archive.”

Last October, after my aunt passed away, I met my mom in Longview, Texas, to go through more than 40 large boxes, most of which were filled from top to bottom with paper. We found utility bills from the 1920s, income tax returns from the 1930s, thousands of Christmas cards and letters spanning decades, and other ephemera.

To use a music term, it was the ultimate crate dig.

I found a few needles in the haystack — postcards that my grandparents collected, a couple of which dated back to their teenage years post-World War I; a souvenir booklet from the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago: and a Radio City Music Hall program and other New York papers from their trip to the city the next year.

What I didn’t see was anything from their visit to Coney Island, even though that proved to be one of the most memorable parts of their trip, not for a good reason.

Located in the southwestern section of Brooklyn, on the southern shore of Long Island, Coney Island was at one time a seaside resort with a series of amusement parks. Home to Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, among other attractions, the area still has two separately owned amusement parks connected by a long boardwalk.

Each park has a famous ride that has landmark status. The Wonder Wheel, which opened in 1920, is a steel Ferris wheel that is more than 150 feet tall and holds 144 riders. Located at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park, it has been a New York City landmark since 1989.

In Luna Park is the Coney Island Cyclone, one of the oldest wooden rollercoasters still operating in the U.S. Opened in 1927 and still owned by the City of New York, the ride includes an 85-foot drop and has been a model for similar rollercoasters across the nation.

On the trip to Coney Island, my then 29-year-old grandmother boarded the famous Cyclone. During the drop, she snapped her neck, apparently tearing some tendons that caused permanent damage.

But in her quiet way, she lived with the pain and never talked much about it, except to say she would never get on a rollercoaster again.

During spring break in April 2011, when Ben was living in New York and performing in “Billy Elliot,” the kids, Jill, and I took the subway to Coney Island to check it out. It was a crowded, cloudy, muggy day that ended with a severe thunderstorm that left us soaked.

On the ride home, we boarded the wrong subway and found ourselves lost in Brooklyn, where we had dinner in a random restaurant before another storm soaked us again. It was, needless to say, a memorable day.

I’m not a huge amusement park person, so I didn’t return for a number of years. Then, on a beautiful but chilly and windy mid-October trip to the city, I went on a photo walk with some friends around the island, which by this time was mostly deserted.

The amusement parks are seasonal. Closed from November through March, they are open on weekends during April and May and then daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In September and October, the parks are typically back to weekends only before closing late in the month.

On this day, only one ride — the relatively new Thunderbolt rollercoaster — was running. The boardwalk, beach, and food spots were still open, but the rest was shut down. With no crowds, it made for a fun shoot.