Like you, when I was taught typing in high school the rule was always double-space. After working for several publications over the years, I think there's still no definitive right or wrong. If pubs use a style guide, it depends on which one they adhere to, which might even be their own custom guidelines. The Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White's Elements of Style are two other very prominent ones. So NYT isn't the last word.
My guess is their determination has to do with the prevalence of online content being delivered today. HTML ignores more than one consecutive space in in-line text; so, rendering consecutive multiple spaces requires custom formatting or special HTML characters that are just too much extra work for users to bother with.
For example, your post is single-spaced when you probably originally typed two spaces after each period!
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Ungraded Topps sets in progress
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1971 573/752 - 76% - NM+
1975 307/660 - 47% - NMMT
1968 273/598 - 46% - NM+
1969 241/664 - 36% - NM+
1974 235/728 - 32% - NM+
1957 129/411 - 31% - NM
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All 6 1758/3813 - 46%
Also looking to buy (non-sport) pre-1970 beer cans and pre-1950 beer advertising
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