You knew something like this would happen when the Times moved its headquarters across from the Port Authority. But seriously, how economically desperate are they getting over there?
I stopped reading the NYT as a main news destination after their role in promoting the Iraq War (still unapologized for) and the breaking story where they claimed Eliot Spitzer "had ties to organized crime" because he visited a hooker -- among hundreds of other reasons for not reading the paper. With the internet it's possible to be reasonably well-informed without a "paper of record," especially an untrustworthy one. These days one mainly looks at the Times for a ballpark idea of what they think a "top story" is, and as a place to learn about competitions such as the one above.