Andrew Rosenthal was weeping. It was Monday morning, March 14, and the long-serving editorial page editor of The New York Times was resigning in front of his colleagues on the 13th floor of the paper’s sprawling Renzo Piano–designed office at 620 Eighth Avenue, directly across from the Port Authority. Rosenthal’s singular devotion to the Times was lost on few in attendance that day. The son of the formidable, late Times executive editor A.M. “Abe” Rosenthal, Andy—as he is known throughout the organization—had been a top editor on both the *Times’*s national and foreign desks before taking over the editorial page in 2007. Rosenthal loved the paper so much, he once wrote, that he didn’t take a job there until his father stepped down, so as not to suggest any impropriety. He is said to have used the *Times’*s 15th-floor corporate dining room to hold dinner parties for his friends.

As Rosenthal, 60, cried, notably absent was the New York Times Company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., 64. The two had known each other nearly all of their lives, dating back to when Andy Rosenthal’s father worked for Sulzberger’s father, Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger. The fathers had overseen the Times through another era of crisis, in the late 1960s into the 1970s, when revenues were declining and television seemed to threaten the paper’s very existence. Together, Abe and Arthur straddled the business and journalistic divide to introduce the so-called “soft” features sections—Sports, Science, Living, Home, and Weekend—that helped turn the paper’s fortunes around.

But in March, as the Times stared down even more harrowing circumstances a half a century after the fathers’ heroics, a chasm had opened between the sons. Under Rosenthal’s nose, the Times company chair recruited Rosenthal’s replacement: James Bennet, a beloved Times expat who had spent the last decade in Washington as the celebrated editor in chief of The Atlantic, where he dramatically increased Web traffic and returned the magazine to profitability. As Rosenthal spoke through tears, many couldn’t help but feel as though an era of the Times was ending with him.

Along with current executive editor Dean Baquet and C.E.O. Mark Thompson, Rosenthal was among a key cohort of advisers to Sulzberger Jr. The Pulitzer Prize jury had cited his front-page editorial on guns in naming the Times a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing that spring. Just days before the announcement, Rosenthal had been talking to people about his future plans for the Opinion section. He was as close to Times royalty as one could get. And then, he was out. If someone of his stature was ousted so unexpectedly and unceremoniously, then it could happen to anybody.

“You can’t underestimate the seismic reaction it had,” said one top Times editor.

At the same time, Bennet’s appointment fueled newsroom gossip that he had been brought back with the assurance that he would eventually succeed Baquet. (Bennet told me this was not true.) It is early to talk about Baquet’s successor; he has been in the job only two years. But the parlor games have begun. Two former Times editors who still maintain ties to the newsroom told me they heard reports that two editors on the masthead, Clifford Levy and Joe Kahn (who head up digital platforms and international coverage, respectively), wondered aloud what the Bennet appointment meant for them. Both Kahn and Levy, who are friendly with Bennet, deny this and say they have nothing but enthusiasm for his arrival.