You can access the archives from the search feature at http://www.nytimes.com .As of midnight Tuesday, access to nearly all of the material that had been limited to TimesSelect users will be free. Article archives going back the last 20 years will be free, and so will older archives from 1851 and 1923, which are in the public domain. The Times will still charge a fee for access to archived stories published between 1923 and 1986.
I don't think I need to explain how useful this can be to anyone researching magic history in that time period.
-Jim