The gash is right below the clearly visible damage to the roof level.

It can not be a shadow which leads me to conclude that indeed it was damage. Something hit at the roof level which caused a progressive collapse of the floors between two outer columns.

Something like this, the Ronan Appartment Building.

NIST acknowledges that there was damage, but they describe it as being 5-10 floors.

Interim Report on WTC7 (page L-18)

• Damage was observed on the south face that starts at the roof level and severed the spandrels between exterior columns near the southwest corner for at least 5 to 10 floors. However, the extent and details of this damage have not yet been discerned, as smoke is present.

My theory is that NIST deliberately downplayed the damage to the SW corner ( see http://zapruder.nl/images/uploads/corner_controversy.pdf ) and the damage to the upper level because they needed the statement of Capt. Boyle to support their large 10-story hole in the lower floors.

Boyle:"...on the north and east side of 7 it didn’t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn’t look good."

Firehouse: "When you looked at the south side, how close were you to the base of that side?"

Boyle: "I was standing right next to the building, probably right next to it."

Firehouse: "When you had fire on the 20 floors, was it in one window or many?"

Boyle: "There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it."
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/norman.html

Other statements contradict there being such a large hole and there's no photographic evidence of it.

Part IIC – WTC 7 Collapse - Final (page 15)

• No heavy debris observed in lobby area, white dust coating.

-- 1/4 width south face, above 5th floor, atrium glass intact.

How could this be if there was a hole 10-story hole from the ground up? The only logical explanation would be if Capt. Boyle was referring to the gash, not to the alleged hole. The testimonies are very conflicting with NIST's damage estime, not with a fairly large hole connected to the SW corner and a large gash in the upper portion. Then it all makes sense, and it would leave no room for NIST's 10-story hole.

Steve Spak's photo and video's show a hole, but this one is connected to the SW corner damage. This is not the hole in the middle, lower portion, that NIST describes.

Debunkers like to show this hole and the gash to explain the collapse, completely ignoring the fact that this is not the damage as it's described in the NIST report (which they also like to use to explain the collapse). You can't have it both ways.

Please watch my movie: WTC7 The Smoking Gun of 9/11