It happened sometime around 6:30 a.m. between Bayonne and Staten Island in the Kill Van Kull Strait.
The NYPD Harbor Unit was able to pull the man from the water, but he was unable to be saved.
He was taken to the Staten Island side of the strait and placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.
The worker was pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center just after 7:30 a.m.
It's not yet known why the man fell off the barge.
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