On the market: A futuristic space pod

The roof deck looks like Darth Vader's city residence (this, we hasten to add, is a good thing), while the interiors look like Lando Calrissian's Bespin Cloud City. Of course, if Vader and Calrissian had some serious cash. Like shorting-the-insurance-company-that-held-the-policy-on-the-Death-Star-just-before-Luke-gets-in-the-X-Wing kind of cash. One cannot help but wonder if Emperor Palpatine takes as loose a view of his senators and insider trading as we do? Anyhow.

520 West 28th St., PH 37-39 is a three-level, 11,000+ square foot penthouse in a building designed by the late, great Zaha Hadid. To put that in context, it's roughly the size of two traditional Greenwich Village townhouses. Except as a condo.

The listing states, "Additional features include automated robotic parking and storage vaults with a private viewing room. Curated services include full-time concierge, doorman, Luxury Attaché lifestyle services and hand-delivered mail." Robotic parking. Just so you didn't feel that our Star Wars references were gratuitous here. Also, we're imagining residents using the private viewing room in the storage vaults to basically recreate the opening scene from Snatch. Also, to check on their gold bars as they hit all-time record price levels because of massive economic uncertainty.

The asking price is $38 million for $11,000 square feet. The buyer for this unit will likely be paying cash, anyhow, so we're not even going to bother calculating the mortgage. But for fun, the carrying costs are approximately $50,000 per month or $600,000 per year – monthly takes of $21,000 and condo fees of $25,000. It's the equivalent of having one's entire post-tax salary as a mid-senior level investment banker spent on carrying costs. smdh.